The Man Who Didn't Belong
by ArchAngel1973
Summary: Based on a challenge by xmag. Post-Graduation, character death, angst… but, CANDY!
1. Chapter 1

**The Man Who Didn't Belong**

**By: Archangel1973 in collaboration with xmag **

**Disclaimer: **Characters and plot lines that appeared in the series, the books, and the concept of Roswell are not mine. Belong to Melinda Metz, UPN, etc, etc…

**Pairing: **M&M

**Rating: **Mature

**Summary: **Based on a challenge by xmag. Post-Graduation, character death, angst… but, CANDY!

**Author's note: **There will be two endings to this story. The readers won't be asked to vote for one of the other, they'll just choose which one they prefer to end the fic. There will probably be a sequel to one of the endings. We have 81 parts complete and more outlined to complete the fic.

This fic does have a Mature rating and is geared towards an older audience due to very strong, very course language, a few adult scenes (which we will place a warning at the beginning of those updates), a lot of angst, and there is some violence.

We will update on Sundays and Wednesdays.

**Part 1**

The hot wind blew through the streets of Los Angeles, whipping up stray bits of trash and threatening to knock over everything in its path. The palm trees that lined the sidewalks on either side of the streets bowed to the will of the angry winds, their pliant trunks giving but refusing to break. There were a few people rushing from their places of employment, some tightly holding onto briefcases and others doing their best to protect their eyes from the sand being tossed around wildly.

Michael Guerin unlocked the drivers' side door of his Range Rover before turning to lean against it, his predatory gaze following a tall redhead as she tried valiantly to keep her short skirt from being pushed up any higher on her perfectly toned thighs. He whistled appreciatively when the wind won the battle despite the woman's best efforts and her skirt flew up, revealing even more tanned, toned skin. He smirked and shook his head, saluting with his right hand when her angry gaze zeroed in on him and she flipped him off.

She hurled an insult at him that was quickly whisked away on the wind but he only shrugged insolently and continued to watch her as she stalked to the parking garage next to the building she had recently exited.

"Hey, Guerin!"

He ran a hand through his short hair as he turned to look at the man standing out of the worst of the wind, holding the door of the agency open. Sam Novak had just been hired and the kid hadn't been around long enough to figure out that Michael wasn't going to be his new best friend. "Whatcha want, Novak?"

"Wanna grab a beer?"

He shook his head at the younger man's enthusiastic question and slid behind the wheel, slamming the door shut without bothering to answer. He didn't know why Marcos had decided to hire someone who had no experience whatsoever in their line of work. He was eager to learn, but Michael didn't have the patience or tolerance to put up with him, and he had no intention of expending any effort in that direction either.

He guided the truck out of the city, heading into the valley and the sixteen acres of seclusion that belonged to him. The Santa Ana's had arrived earlier that week, the constant winds hot, dry, and unrelenting. Several counties over wildfires raged out of control, defying every attempt made to extinguish them. When darkness fell he would be able to stand on his back porch and see the orange glow from the distant fires reflected against the night sky.

_Not that he cared enough to look_, he thought as he turned onto the gravel road that led to his house. Darkness was beginning to fall as he reached up to activate the garage door opener and pulled into the open slot. The door creaked as it lowered once more and he made a mental note to do something about it before it drove him crazy.

He turned his head to look at the motorcycle parked to the right of the truck and nodded to himself as he climbed out and went into the house. He had been working non-stop for the past couple of months and he needed a break; he needed to hit the open road and get away from everything for a while.

Silence greeted him and he looked around as soon as the lights were switched on, making sure that everything was just as he had left it. Satisfied that no one had been there he tossed his keys on the counter and pulled his wallet out of his back pocket, dropping it beside the ring of keys. The kitchen housed all stainless steel appliances that were bordered by counters topped with imported black marble. Everything in the house was state-of-the-art and the highest quality that money could buy, not because he used most of it, but because it was the best available.

Michael had grown up with nothing, not even knowing who his parents were or where he had come from. Until he was seventeen the only thing he had known was the orphanage, living off of the charity of others, and forced to survive the brutality doled out by others who were bigger and stronger than him. He had sworn that when he made it out he would make something of himself and he would never have to rely on anyone for anything ever again.

He wandered through the house and finally made his way into the bathroom off of his bedroom, turning the water on and adjusting the temperature. Once it was hot enough to satisfy him he went back to the kitchen and opened the freezer, digging around until he found the frozen pizza with the toppings he wanted. He placed the pizza on a sheet of aluminum foil and frowned down at it for several moments before going to the refrigerator and digging around for a jar of jalapenos and the shaker of crushed red peppers. After placing copious amounts of the jalapenos and peppers on the frozen pizza he slid it into the oven and went to take a shower.

He took a quick shower, letting the hot water pound some of the tension from his tall frame. He had informed Marcos that he was taking time off and the man had simply waved him off, well aware that he would return to work when he felt like it. _That was the advantage of basically working for yourself_, he thought as he toweled off.

Marcos owned the agency but he contracted the work out so if Michael chose to turn a job down there were no repercussions. He pulled on a pair of sweatpants and padded barefoot into the kitchen to check on the pizza, determining that it needed a few more minutes. A quick glance at the clock let him know that the basketball game would be starting right about the time his dinner would be ready.

In the living room he picked up the remote and aimed it at the 50-inch flat-screen television mounted to the wall. He flipped through the sports channels until he located the one he wanted, watching the commentary until the commercials started. He rushed back into the kitchen to slide the pizza on a cutting board and cut it into slices. Grabbing a beer out of the refrigerator, he set it on one corner of the cutting board and carried the whole thing into the living room.

He placed the cutting board on the coffee table just as the game started and he snarled at the television when the opposing team took control of the ball after the tip-off. He sat down on the floor with his back against the sofa, long legs stretched out underneath the table as he reached for the first slice of pizza.

He slouched down against the couch and alternated between hurling insults at the screen when the opposing team had the ball and cheering loudly when his team scored. He was annoyed when his team lost by two points at the last second and he shook his head at the reporter interviewing the player responsible for the winning shot.

Before long his eyes started to slide closed and his head dropped back to rest on the cushions. He was exhausted after his last job and his body was not going to be put off any longer; sleep claimed him despite the uncomfortable position he was in.

He awoke violently several hours later, falling to the side and clutching at his chest when he felt pain slicing through his lungs, stealing his breath. He tried uselessly to push himself up but his right arm felt like lead and he couldn't move it. He tried desperately to draw air into his lungs and he was certain he could taste the coppery tang of blood.

_What the hell was going on?_ A wave of nausea rolled over him and he fought against it, focusing instead on trying to understand what was happening to him. His lungs were burning and his vision was beginning to go dark at the edges but no matter how hard he tried he couldn't get up off of the floor.

The pain suddenly stopped, ending just as quickly as it had started, and he pulled in deep, gulping breaths. His heart felt like it was going to pound right out of his chest and he moved experimentally as he slowly sat up, testing his body out to see if any of the pain remained. He pulled himself up onto the couch and fell back on it, trying to calm his breathing and rubbing one hand over his chest to assure himself that he was all right.

He gradually gained control of his breathing and his heart rate leveled out leaving him confused about what had happened. In all of his life he had never experienced pain like that and he hoped to never experience it again. Before long the mysterious phantom pains were forgotten as the sleep his body craved claimed him once more and he lost his grasp on the disturbing sensations that had brutally assaulted his body.

The hours slowly passed and he automatically awoke just as dawn broke over the desert, his body programmed to rise with the sun regardless of what else was going on in his life. He rolled to his feet and went into his bedroom to change into a pair of shorts and his running shoes before stepping out onto the back deck. He warmed up with repetitions of pushups and sit-ups, his workout regimented and precise to get the most out of every single movement. He surveyed the landscape as he stretched some more, running in place for a minute before setting out on a five-mile run through his property.

His body was conditioned for the activity, his muscles honed from years of hard, physical work. Making the five-mile run was effortless despite the hot winds that hadn't let up overnight and sweat ran along his flesh in salty rivulets, following the contours of his body. When he completed the circuit he bent over, hands braced on his legs right above his knees, pulling the hot, dry air into his lungs. As soon as his pulse had returned to normal he straightened up and went inside to take a shower.

After a breakfast of scrambled eggs smothered with hot peppers and onions and a side of toast he straightened the house up and walked outside, heading for the building back behind the house. The Santa Ana's ruffled his short hair and kicked sand up, the tiny grains beating against the bare flesh of his arms, but despite the dust and sand that was being whipped around him his stride didn't change.

He unlocked the wide doors and pushed them open, flipping the light switch as he stepped inside. When he had purchased the property the building had been set up to house livestock and one of the first things he had done was to completely gut the inside and redo it so he could use it as a mechanic shop. His gaze moved over the half dozen motorcycles in different stages of completion and he ran his hand over the tank of the one closest to him.

He had discovered his passion for restoring vintage motorcycles in junior high when the new director at the orphanage had taken an interest in him. Tom Gifford had seen the anger and hostility that Michael didn't even try to hide and he had dedicated an enormous amount of time to redirecting those emotions and channeling them into something positive.

The overhead lights reflected off of a set of chrome exhaust pipes, drawing his gaze to the table on his left. He had gotten new parts in before his last job and he had barely had time to uncrate them before the call had come in, requesting his services. He wandered around the motorcycles for several minutes, waiting to see which one was going to hold his attention.

He finally settled on the 1971 Harley Davidson Electraglide that sat near the south wall, the engine disassembled and strewn out across the worktable. He crossed the room and turned on the radio that sat on one of the shelves, the unit already tuned to the jazz station that he preferred. He walked over to the upright toolbox, unlocking it and selecting a handful of tools that he carried over to the worktable.

For the next few hours he lost himself in the tedious work that went into restoring the vintage motorcycle, forgetting about everything else. He pulled one of the boxes down off of a shelf and pulled a knife from the sheath on his belt, slicing through the tape that held the top closed.

The knife clattered to the tabletop when he experienced the strangest sensation; a feeling of loss, soul-deep and cutting straight to the center of his being washed over him and his hands curled around the edge of the table to keep himself upright. He didn't understand why the feelings were assaulting him or where they were coming from and he slowly straightened up when they began to dissipate. _It had to be stress-related,_ he thought. _Either that or he was starting to buy into the myths that surrounded the Santa Ana's. He had to get away for a while, to clear his head, and get rid of all of these weird feelings._

He cursed out loud when he cut his knuckles on a jagged edge of the engine part that he was pulling out of a box and as he leaned over to look at the wound he noticed a crack in one of the seals on the part.

"Son of a bitch!" he muttered, picking the part up and examining it closely. He hadn't planned to go anywhere, but if he wanted to finish this step he was going to have to. At least he wouldn't have to go into L.A.; he could stop at one of the smaller towns outside of the large city. He made a list of supplies that were running low and shoved it in his pocket before locking up and heading back to the house.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Michael parked the Range Rover and grabbed the box sitting in the passengers' seat before climbing out and walking up to the automotive parts store. He made it a point to ignore the people that were everywhere and stepped through the first set of automatic doors.

"Mister! Hey, mister!"

He looked down when a small pair of hands circled his wrist and tugged, causing his watch to dig into his flesh. "What?" he snapped, pulling his hand free.

Blond curls bounced as the little girl shifted from one foot to the other. "Ya wanna buy some cookies? It's for a real good cause." She pointed to her left where a group of little girls in uniforms were clustered around a table piled high with brightly colored boxes of cookies. Their shrill, high-pitched voices grated on his nerves and he shifted the box he was holding to a more comfortable position as he ignored the kid and continued on his way into the store.

At the counter he lifted the part out and showed the clerk the defective seal, demanding a replacement at no charge. When the teenager scurried into the back Michael wandered off to pick up the items on his list. He dropped a case of oil and a box of bulbs into a cart along with a handful of spark plugs before moving over a couple of aisles to look at the tools.

Once the clerk had located a replacement for the defective part and the rest of his purchases had been paid for, Michael loaded everything back into the cart and pushed it out through the first set of automatic doors.

"Hey, mister, you sure you don't wanna buy some cookies?"

"Get lost, kid," he growled.

"C'mon," she said, her smile revealing a wide gap where she was missing two front teeth.

"Julie, sweetie, he said no."

His irritated gaze swung to the woman who had rushed over to retrieve the little girl.

"I'm sorry," she apologized with a smile. "It's her first year in the group and she's very excited about – "

"Do I look like I care? Do you people even consider that the only reason anyone buys your damn product is so you'll leave them alone?"

"Sir, I don't think there's any reason to – "

"I don't give a fuck what you think, lady." He narrowed his eyes when she gasped and quickly covered the little girls' ears. "The fact is you're extorting money from people and you're usin' your brats to do it."

"It helps build their self-esteem – "

"Sellin' cookies that can be bought at a grocery store for a third of the price you charge helps build self-esteem?" He shook his head and his dark eyes raked over her ample form coldly. "If it's so great for self-esteem why aren't you and all the other parents out sellin' cookies? Because you know that people are more likely to pay these outrageous prices if the product is bein' offered by kids… it's a marketing ploy. People will buy this shit from a bunch of bratty little kids a helluva lot faster than they will from a bunch of overweight, middle-aged mothers."

"You… you… you bastard!" she sputtered indignantly. "I'll bet you kick puppies for fun."

"Maybe I do." He straightened up and glanced around in interest. "Why? You got one over there?" He would never kick a puppy but she didn't need to know that.

She gasped, horrified, and hurried away, dragging the little girl with her.

Michael shook his head and crossed the parking lot to unload his purchases. He had liked it much better when the automotive store had been the only thing on the block. Now there were shops lined up on both sides of it and there were people everywhere.

He pulled out of the parking lot and followed the main street out to the old highway, hanging a right and driving several miles out of his way so he could get an order of the spiciest hot wings in the county. He shifted restlessly, trying to ignore the sudden feeling that was making his skin feel like it was crawling.

As he parked and stepped out of his vehicle his thoughts were drawn back to the night before and the dream that had woke him up. Unconsciously his hand came up to rub his chest; he wished he could remember what he had been dreaming about. _What kind of scenarios had his mind conjured up that were strong enough to turn mental images into physical pain?_

"Will you look at what the Santa Ana's blew in," the woman behind the counter called out as he stepped inside the dimly lit bar.

Michael smirked and nodded in greeting as he settled on one of the bar stools at the counter. He held up his forefinger when she quirked an eyebrow in question and he leaned to one side to grab a handful of nuts from the bowl on his right.

She pulled an imported, non-alcoholic beer from the cooler under the counter, popped the cap off, and slid it along the surface into his waiting hand. "The usual?" she asked and yelled an order out to the cook in the back when Michael nodded.

Jordan Sykes had known the man at the counter for close to five years; he was a loner who liked his beer cold, his food hot, and his women even hotter. Most people who became regulars at the bar talked about themselves, jobs, families, and a million other things, but this man was an enigma. Michael Guerin didn't talk much and when he did talk it was never about anything personal.

They had gotten comfortable with each other, or as comfortable as he was able to get with anyone, and she could tell that he was on the prowl, his predatory gaze scanning the women who had started coming in since the last time he had stopped by.

"So, what's new?" he asked, swinging around to look at her.

She leaned on the counter and met his gaze evenly. "Got a few newcomers that'll fit your preferences, but keep your hands off the new waitress."

"She hot?"

"Hot and taken."

Michael nodded at the warning tone in her voice and took a long drink from the bottle in his hand before tipping the neck in her direction. "She yours?"

"Um-hmm." She poured herself a shot and tossed it back, satisfied that he wouldn't cross her and make a play for her partner. "Got a blonde that comes in every night around eight that'll interest you, definitely the no-strings type."

Michael glanced at his watch. "Eight o'clock, huh?" _Hell, he could have dinner, sucker several losers out of a weeks' worth of wages at the pool table, get laid, and be home before ten-thirty._ "Tonight might be her lucky night."

"You're such a prick," she muttered with a grin.

"I know."

Jordan shook her head as she moved to the other end of the counter to serve a couple of newcomers. Michael was full of himself, but from the stories she'd overheard from the women he'd bedded he had reason to be. Their only complaint was that he never asked for a repeat performance. She knew he didn't date, he never took the women back to his place, and he always made sure they knew up-front that he had no interest in them beyond having sex. He didn't stick around for the morning after, he didn't call the next day, and he never remembered their names, but that didn't stop the women from coming by to see if he was interested in hooking up again.

She glanced back at him and rolled her eyes when she saw him staring at a couple of women who had just entered the bar. _He was such a horny bastard_, she thought as she mixed a couple of drinks and placed them on the counter in front of the customers. She leaned against the counter, catching his eye and shaking her head when his gaze zeroed in on one of the waitresses.

He raised the bottle in his right hand and tipped it in her direction before turning his attention back to the brunette sitting on the stool beside him.

"My money's on the brunette," Cal muttered as he passed her on his way to deliver Michael's dinner.

"I've got fifty that says it'll be Miss Eight O'clock," she challenged.

"You're on."

Michael leaned against the counter in a comfortable sprawl, his eyes roving over the brunette who had approached him. She talked too much and there were about a dozen other, more interesting things she could be doing with her mouth, but she just wasn't doing it for him. She was built in all the right places, but she wasn't the flavor of the night; he was just enjoying the view while he waited for the right piece of ass to enter his line of sight.

He tried to shake off the feeling of emptiness that he hadn't yet been able to get rid of, and he sincerely hoped that some time away from everything would take care of it. He tuned the woman's voice out and started planning a road trip, mentally preparing a list of things he needed to do before leaving and what he needed to pack. Maybe a trip to Santa Fe would help; he hadn't been there in a few years and he was sure the women there were still hotter than hell.


	2. Chapter 2

**Part 2**

The weather in New Mexico was uncomfortably warm for October and despite the threat of the thunderstorms the newscasters had been predicting Michael had insisted on going out. Maria walked beside him, listening to the sounds of nature around them in the absence of conversation. She had long ago gotten used to his silences, knowing that it was just part of his personality and he would break it when he was ready to talk.

They had left home nearly six months ago, running from the Special Unit of the F.B.I. who had descended upon their hometown with the intention of taking all six of them into custody. When things had calmed down and they had felt that they had finally shaken the agents trailing them they had settled down four hours from Roswell. It was as close as they dared to get to their families, afraid that something would tip off the F.B.I. and the chase would begin all over again.

They had agreed that it was too dangerous for all of them to settle in the same area so they had written the names of three different cities on strips of paper and tossed them in a hat. She and Michael had lucked out and gotten a small town in New Mexico. Liz and Max had pulled the name of a small town in Colorado, and Kyle and Isabel had gotten some small town in Texas. They were four hours from each other, safely hidden away in three different states.

Leaving everything that they knew behind hadn't been easy and there had been times in the beginning when she was sure she wasn't going to be able to stay on the run with Michael. They had fought constantly at first, with each other and any of the others who would engage them. It had been their way of dealing with the stress put on them by their situation, but one night they had come close to losing Michael when the F.B.I. had gotten too close and all of the arguing and fighting had come to an end.

The decision to stop running had been a joint one and it had been the best thing for them to do. She loved her best friend dearly, but if she had been forced to ride around with her and Max much longer she had been certain she was going to go insane. The couple hadn't been married that long and now that they could be together without worrying about Tess or their destiny they were worse than they had been during their whole tragic high school romance.

Isabel and Kyle were the odd couple, thrown together because they were each on their own. Isabel had married Jesse, a young lawyer in her father's firm, but he had stayed behind in Roswell when they had been forced to flee for their lives. She shook her head as her thoughts drifted back to Alex Whitman, one of her best friends and Isabel's true love. Alex wouldn't have let her go on the run, hiding from the F.B.I. and doing whatever was necessary to survive, without him. He wouldn't have stayed behind, but unfortunately, he had been killed by Tess in her quest to translate the stupid destiny book. She was convinced that Isabel had gotten involved with Jesse and married him because she was trying to avoid dealing with the loss of Alex.

Kyle had been unlucky enough to fall for Tess before they had discovered her traitorous actions and he hadn't been in any other relationships since that disaster. He had done his best to avoid having feelings for anyone else since then but Maria suspected that he wasn't nearly as unaware of Isabel as he would have everyone believe. She had wondered for a while if the two of them had turned to each other as a way to deal with the loneliness, but she had finally decided that if they had she couldn't blame them.

Tess had returned with the Granolith and hidden it in the cave where it had originally been hidden before her subsequent capture by the military. They had heard that she had died at the hands of her captors, but none of them had felt anything but relief that she was no longer a threat to them.

Her gaze finally settled on the man walking beside her, her eyes tracing over his beloved features. Michael was still difficult, he was still moody, but he had grown over the past few years and she couldn't imagine her life without him in it. He had been there for her no matter what was going on in their lives and she knew he would protect her with everything he had.

They had settled into their lives as well as they could, knowing that at any time they might have to pick up and run again. She trusted him to be there, to watch over her, and to keep her safe. More than that though, she loved him, and she no longer questioned whether or not he loved her because she knew that he did.

They lived in a small house outside of town, away from prying eyes and nosy questions. The house was miles away from their closest neighbor and they both felt that it was safer that way. Michael had been picky about the location, and she had lost count of how many houses they had looked at before he had been satisfied with this one. It was secluded and it gave him a place to work through his nervous energy and it allowed her the freedom to know he wasn't going to do something with his powers and risk being seen by someone other than her.

"What're you thinkin' about?" Michael asked, glancing at her when he felt her gaze on him.

"Just glad that we're together and that we're safe for the moment."

He grunted and turned to follow the trail that led out past the old riverbed that had been dry for many years. "This isn't the life that I ever imagined for you."

Maria sighed. She hated it when he fell into this contemplative mood, where he wondered if he had done the wrong thing by allowing her to go with him when they started running. "Do you really think I would've stayed if you had left me in Roswell?" she asked, shaking her head. "You know better than that; I would've gone after you and I would've found you, Michael."

He nodded, accepting the inevitability of her statement. "I suppose you're right."

"I'm always right." Her fingers tightened on his hand as she stopped, forcing him to stop with her or drag her behind him. "What's got you thinking like this again?"

"People at work, I guess. I was listenin' to 'em at lunch last night, talkin' about all the things they wanted to do when they were younger and how they'd finally just accepted things weren't gonna change after workin' at the factory for a while." He shrugged. "You're better than that, Maria. You deserve more than workin' at a damn factory in some crappy little town."

They both worked at the factory but they had different shifts so most days they had a couple of hours together at the most. It was rare that they got a day off together, and an entire weekend was unheard of, so she didn't want him to spend the time berating himself because life hadn't turned out the way they had imagined it would.

"Michael, it's not ideal, but if the only other option was not having you in my life, I'll gladly do this for the rest of my life. It's gonna get better."

"Yeah?"

"Hey, the second shift supervisor said they've got an opening coming up next month for third shift. That'll put us on the same shift so we'll have more time together."

He nodded. "Next month, huh?"

"Next month," she affirmed. "We'll be able to spend more time together once we get on the same shift." She nudged him with her arm as they started to walk again. "We'll be able to get away to see the others more often." She knew he missed their friends though he was reluctant to admit it.

"More interested in spendin' some quality time with you," he said, looking up when he heard the first clap of thunder roll across the sky. "Guess that storm's movin' in after all; let's head back before it gets started."

They walked along the trail, hurrying in an effort to beat the rain that the clouds were threatening to release at any moment. The first fat droplets of rain began to fall just as they ran through the front door and slammed it shut behind them.

"Y'know what we haven't done in too long?" he asked, leaning up against the closed door and pulling her to him.

"What?"

"Spent an entire day in bed." He lowered his head to kiss her, groaning when she melted against him and returned the kiss with every bit of passion she possessed.

"Now there's an offer that's too good to pass up." She smiled up at him as she stripped his shirt from him, tossing it on the floor beside them.

"No fair," he muttered teasingly. "You're overdressed."

"Guess I'd better do something about that." Her smile was wicked as she slowly eased each button through its respective buttonhole, leaving the panels hanging open as she leaned forward to press against him.

"You are so cheatin'." His hands settled at her waist and he lifted her up, turning to press her back against the door when her legs locked around his waist. "Do you have any idea what you do to me?" he growled.

Maria buried her hands in his unruly hair and dragged his mouth back to hers. "I know exactly what I do to you," she said, the words muffled against his lips. It had taken so long to get him to a point where he was this comfortable with her and with himself. "You gonna spend all day talking or you gonna take me to bed?"

Michael chuckled at her impatient tone and removed her shirt, dipping his head to press a kiss against the swell of her breast before turning to carry her down the hall to their bedroom. "I think you're addicted to sex," he laughed.

"I'm addicted to sex with you," she corrected him, pressing one hand against the wall to keep him from bumping into it since he was incapable of carrying her and walking a straight line at the same time. "You've ruined me for any other man."

A self-satisfied smirk lit up his features as he crossed the threshold to their bedroom. "I've got that same addiction, so I hope you don't expect an apology."

"You're addicted to sex with yourself?" She giggled at his expression. "I knew working different shifts had seriously cut into our time together, but I wasn't aware things had gotten to that point."

Michael groaned when she twisted his words around intentionally but he couldn't help the laughter that escaped him in response to her teasing expression. She was the one person who could make him smile no matter what the situation was and she always managed to find a way to make him believe that anything was possible.

"I think you've been spending too much time alone here lately."

He lifted one eyebrow in question.

"We're both half-naked, in our bedroom, and we're still standing here talking." She smiled brightly when he carried her over to the bed and turned, falling back on the mattress with her on top of him. "That's more like it."

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Maria enjoyed being the first to wake up early the next morning and she propped herself up on one elbow as she watched Michael sleeping so peacefully. He rarely slept so well, plagued by nightmares where he was faced with the abusive foster father who had beaten him on a regular basis during his childhood, or where one or more of them had been captured and/or killed by their F.B.I. pursuers.

They had spent the day in bed, making love until they had fallen into an exhausted sleep late the night before. Most of the time they were doing good if they were able to manage sex a few times a week between their hectic schedules, which made rare days like the one before so special. They had one more day to spend together and Michael had insisted that she not let him sleep late and waste their time.

He shifted, his body automatically seeking hers out even in sleep and he settled down just as soon as she moved closer to him. She watched him for a while longer before getting up to shower and go start breakfast, knowing that he wouldn't be far behind.

Less than an hour later Michael joined her in the kitchen, coming up behind her and wrapping his arms around her. "Mornin'," he greeted gruffly as he rasped his stubbled chin against the sensitive skin of her neck. "How're you feelin'?"

"Sore in all the right places," she said, turning in his arms to kiss him good morning.

"It's been a while hasn't it?" He released her when she motioned back towards the stove and breakfast. "I'll set the table."

They discussed different things over breakfast and then cleaned up before heading out for a walk. The air smelled fresh and clean after the rain the day before and the cooler air felt good against their skin. They talked about everything and nothing as they carefully stepped over limbs brought down by the storm. There were more trees in this part of New Mexico and it had taken some time to get used to seeing so much green around them.

"We should go see Max and Liz soon," Maria said as they stepped around a small tree that had been knocked over by the strong winds.

"Thanksgiving's comin' up here pretty soon; maybe we can get together then. Y'know, all six of us; we'd probably have to meet somewhere neutral, but we could do it."

Maria nodded when he agreed, a bit surprised that he hadn't tried to talk her out of it.

"Hey, do you hear that?" he asked, drawing her out of her thoughts.

"What?"

"The river! It's been dry for years!"

Maria rushed to keep up with him when he ran along the trail towards the rocky overhang that looked down over the riverbed. "Michael, I don't see what the big deal is; it's just runoff after the storm. It'll be dried up again in a few days."

"You've gotta admit that's pretty impressive, Maria." Michael stood on the overhang looking down at the water rushing between the banks of the shallow riverbed. "I mean, it's been dry for years and suddenly it's - "

Maria's eyes widened when the ground beneath his feet suddenly gave out and he fell through empty air to land at the bottom of the ravine with a sickening sound. "Michael!" she screamed as she ran to what was left of the overhang to look down. His body was lying at an angle that wasn't normal and she could see a pool of blood creeping from beneath his body to stain the rocky ground.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After nearly seven hours on the road Michael was parched and ready to stop for the night. He had left L.A. around ten o'clock that morning, intending to make a pit stop at the Lucky 7, a bar on the west side of a small town outside of Flagstaff. The bar was in the perfect location; across the street from a cheap hotel and next door to a small restaurant that served the best breakfast anywhere in the state of Arizona.

He parked the Harley-Davidson in the space directly in front of the bar, completely disregarding the sign indicating that the space was reserved for handicapped persons. He snorted derisively as he dismounted, pulling a multi-tool out of his pocket and removing the two screws that held the sign in place. He tossed the small metal sign on the ground, face-down, and stepped on it for good measure as he walked up to the front door of the bar.

He stepped inside, not bothering to hold the door for the people entering behind him. He scanned the people scattered around the room, some in groups and some alone, frowning when he noticed that there was no shortage of ugly women.

"Hey, honey."

Michael turned his head to look at the woman who had just spoken and shook his head as he gave her the once-over. Her voice was the only thing she had going for her and that wasn't enough to interest his dick. "Go back to your cave." He walked off before she had the opportunity to speak up in her defense. _Not that there was a defense for anything that ugly_, he thought irritably. He stepped up to the bar and motioned for the bartender standing at the other end to join him.

Gus D'Angelo was a short, stocky Italian man who had served in the same unit with the man rudely gesturing for him to hurry up. They had spent several months together in a war-torn Africa, doing things that no one should ever be asked to do. Michael Guerin was not typical in any sense of the word; he was an asshole and he was proud of it. He was hot-tempered and cold-blooded, he didn't care what anyone thought, and he said what he was thinking without regard for anyone's feelings.

"What're you doin' in my part of the world, Guerin?" he asked, pulling out one of the imported non-alcoholic beers the man preferred.

"Just passin' through," Michael answered, taking a long drink from the ice-cold bottle. "I was intendin' to stop overnight, get laid, have dinner, crash for a few hours, and be on my way." He pointed around the bottle clutched in his right hand. "What the hell is this, Gus? You've got so many ugly bitches in here that my dick's havin' second thoughts - "

"Keep it down, will ya? You're gonna run all the payin' customers off." Gus didn't know why he hadn't tossed the other man out and told him to never come back when he had first discovered the Lucky 7. "Change up your itinerary and come back in a couple of hours."

"You gonna have somethin' better in here later?" He looked around in disgust. There wasn't a single woman in the place that he'd fuck, not even if he was drunk and blindfolded.

Gus kept his voice low as he spoke. "It's a little bit early for the good-lookin' ones to be out an' about. Come back after six."

"Fine."

"Hey, you can't walk outta here with that," he yelled when the other man headed for the door.

"Call a cop," Michael muttered, moving through the people milling around. Stepping out into the sunlight he slid his sunglasses back on and started to cross the street.

"Let me guess, this would be your motorcycle."

Michael paused, standing in the middle of the lane as he turned to face the woman who had spoken. His hidden gaze raked over the well-endowed police officer, noting that she was curved in all the right places. _Of course, the best-looking piece of ass in this crappy little town would be a cop._ "What if it is? You gonna write me a ticket? Arrest me?" He glanced over his shoulder when a car swerved to miss him and he flipped them off before turning his attention back to her.

"You do realize parking here is a serious offense."

"Parkin' here was a convenience and one that I don't think should be reserved for people simply because they're handicapped. The fact that you're not naked, ridin' my dick, and screamin' my name…" He grinned wolfishly. "Now that is a serious offense, but one we can easily remedy."

"Yeah, let's remedy that," she said, pulling a pair of handcuffs out and letting them dangle from her fingertips as she sashayed over to him.

"That's what I'm talkin' about." Michael was reaching for the handcuffs when she suddenly grabbed his arm, twisted it, and slammed him face-first up against the closest vehicle. The bottle of beer fell to the ground and shattered as he lost his grip on it, and the handcuffs pinched his wrists when she closed them as tightly as possible. "What the fuck are you doin'?"

"We're goin' for a little ride, smartass."

Three hours later Michael was ready to explode from sheer boredom. Officer Bitch had tossed him in an empty cell in the equally empty holding area and apparently forgotten the entire booking process. He didn't know what kind of law enforcement this was supposed to be, but he was already mentally putting his lawsuit together.

"Had time to cool down yet?"

"So, Officer Bitch has returned." He turned away from the wall, scowl set firmly in place. "What's up with the - " His words lodged in his throat when he got a good look at the woman in front of him. She was no longer wearing a uniform; she had changed into a red dress that fit her shapely form like a second skin and flattered every curve. It also revealed that she wasn't wearing a damn thing under it. He watched her as she closed the distance between them and the only thing separating them was the bars of his cell. "What're you doin'?"

"You," she answered throatily.

"And you couldn't do that without arrestin' me?"

"Baby, you're not the type to sit around and wait for a woman, and I could tell you're not gonna be around past morning."

"So you arrested me?"

"I didn't arrest you. I just put you in a cage so you wouldn't waste this on someone who probably wouldn't have appreciated it anyway." Her grin was predatory as she reached between the bars and cupped his crotch.

"I think this constitutes sexual harassment."

"And I think you're pissed because you're used to doing the harassing." She shook her head, amused by his dark expression. "Don't worry, no one's stepping all over your Alpha male toes," she assured him as she unlocked the door and slid it open.

Michael grabbed her arm and hauled her into the cell, pinning her against the bars and kissing her roughly as he worked his right leg between her thighs. "Let's get one thing straight," he growled. "I don't do bondage unless you wanna be on the receiving end, I don't do that whole mornin' after shit, and it's highly doubtful that I'll remember your name after tonight."

"I could care less whether you remember my name or not." Her eyes rolled back in her head when he shoved the low neckline of her dress aside to take a rosy nipple into his mouth. "The only thing I'm interested in is whether or not you're as good as you think you are."

"We can do hard and fast right here and now, or we can take some time and you can experience multiple orgasms that'll blow your mind, your choice."

"Why don't we start with hard and fast," she whispered huskily, blindly reaching for his belt and releasing it. "We've got all night for the rest of it."

_This was the way it was supposed to go down_, Michael thought. _No strings, no interest in anything but gratifying sex, and she was just as aggressive as he was._


	3. Chapter 3a

_**Author's Note:**__**After reading this part a lot of you will quite possibly hate us and be ready to stop reading this story, but give it a chance. Have faith in us, as all is not what it seems, and remember that we're both 100% Candies!**_

**Part 3a**

Maria scanned the area, her eyes wildly searching for a way to get down to Michael. He hadn't moved and he hadn't responded to her panicked screams, and she was terrified by the amount of blood that was creeping along the rocks next to his body. She was going to have to go back to find a safe way down to the bottom of the ravine and she was losing precious minutes.

She ran along the trail that led back to the house, stopping every few hundred feet to move near the edge of the overhang and look for a way down. She had covered nearly a quarter of a mile by the time she found a place that wasn't too steep to navigate and she hurried to begin the climb down. Halfway down she lost her footing and slid the rest of the way to the bottom, ignoring the cuts and scrapes on her arms as she pushed herself to her feet and ran back along the river towards Michael.

She slid to a stop when she reached him, suddenly terrified of what she was going to find. His breathing was labored, but the rasping sound meant that he was alive. She fell to her knees beside him, her hands framing his face as she called his name, her tone urgent.

Receiving no response from him she started to run her hands over his body, searching for the injuries that were responsible for his unconscious state. Her hands paused over his chest when she realized that his ribcage was caved in on his left side.

"Oh, my God," she whispered hoarsely. "Michael…" She placed her hands on his cheeks and gently turned his face to her. "Michael, I need you to wake up." His face was unmarked with the exception of fresh bruising but he still didn't respond to her voice. She carefully eased his body up so she could see the injury that was causing him to bleed all over the place. She couldn't see the wound and she was scared to move him too much, terrified that she would only hurt him worse than he already was.

"M'ria…" His voice was slurred and weak, but she rejoiced when she heard it. She eased him back down and moved up closer to his head so he could see her. "M'ria, what happened? Can't feel anything but this pain in my chest."

"Michael…" Fear gripped her when she realized that his gaze was unfocused and glassy.

He tried to raise his right arm to cover his mouth when he felt the tickle in his throat but he couldn't seem to make it move. He coughed weakly and cried out when the pain in his chest became unbearable.

Maria's eyes widened when she saw the blood beginning to trickle down from one corner of his mouth. "Michael, Michael, baby, focus on me, please," she begged, her eyes locked on his. He was trying to focus on her, she could see the effort he was making, but before long he lost the fight and the darkness pulled him under again. "God, no, don't do this to me, Michael." She released her hold on him as she ran her hands over his pockets, searching for the prepaid cell phone he carried everywhere.

Each of the couples had one prepaid cell phone in the case of an emergency and as her fingers finally closed on it she prayed Max would answer.

Max Evans reached for the cell phone apprehensively. A call on this phone could only mean bad news and his mind was already running through the list of possibilities as he answered it. "Hello?" He froze when he heard the hysterical voice coming from the other end and he hurried to try and calm her down. "Maria? Maria, you've gotta calm down, I can't understand you."

The only thing he understood was Michael's name, the rest of her words were running together and were so garbled that he couldn't distinguish them from each other. He grabbed the keys to the car he shared with his wife and locked up before running out of the house. He had to get to Liz; she was the only one who stood a chance of calming Maria down enough to get a coherent explanation out of her.

Maria shifted around after pulling off the sweatshirt she had pulled on over her tee shirt that morning, covering Michael with it and cradling his head in her lap. She had finally gotten off the phone with Liz, who had been able to decipher her tearful monologue, but only after receiving confirmation that she and Max were already on their way. _They're four hours away_, her mind taunted. _They'll never get here in time_.

"They will get here," she swore, pressing a kiss to Michael's forehead. "Nothing else is acceptable."

He groaned quietly and his eyes suddenly shot open as he tried to draw in gasping breaths, his left hand ineffectively clawing at his chest as more blood trailed from the corner of his mouth. He was getting weaker before her very eyes and the fact that she was able to hold him down by pinning his shoulders to the ground testified to his weakness.

"You have to stay still, Michael." She caressed his face, trying in vain to keep his gaze focused on her. "Listen to me… please," she whispered, her voice cracking on the plea. "I think your ribs are broken and I'm pretty sure you've punctured one of your lungs; if you move you're only gonna make it worse."

"M'ria… can't feel… how long…?"

Maria struggled to follow his ramblings as her gaze moved down his body to his legs. He hadn't moved them, hadn't even tried to, and she was afraid to try to straighten them out for fear of causing more harm. No feeling more than likely indicated a spinal injury and any movement could hurt him even more.

She glanced at her watch, surprised to see that nearly two hours had passed since he had fallen from the overhang. "Max will be here soon, Michael, we just have to wait for him, okay?" She had to keep him calm, which meant she had to keep her emotions under control so he couldn't see how close she was to losing it.

"Night… how long?"

_Night?_ What was he… _Oh, God, no! Please, no!_ Maria hurried back up so that she was kneeling next to his shoulders. Swallowing hard she held one hand in front of his eyes and moved it back and forth. Her heart sank in her chest when he continued to stare straight ahead. She forced the tears back and settled down with his head in her lap once more. "It's been dark for a couple of hours, but Max will be here soon to make things right again."

"Can't feel…"

Maria could feel her heart shredding when his confused rambling went back to the paralysis in his legs. "It'll be okay, Michael. Don't think about your legs, please? As soon as Max gets here he'll fix you up as good as new and then he'll tell you what an idiot you are for standing so close to the edge of that damned overhang."

"No, M'ria…" His left hand flailed as he searched for hers and she quickly wrapped her hand around his. His hand dropped weakly to his chest and he sighed raggedly. "Don' un'erstan'," he slurred. "Can' feel you…"

"Can't feel me? No, Michael, you're holding my hand. I'm right here, baby." Now she was rambling and she couldn't seem to stop herself. "I'm not going anywhere, Michael, I'm right here. Do you hear me?"

His breathing was getting worse, more labored, by the minute, and there wasn't anything she could do to help him. The blood beneath his body had slowed considerably, but at the same time the trail of blood at the corner of his mouth was seeping out at an alarming rate.

"M'ria?" he called for her, his voice loud as his hand clenched tightly around hers.

"Right here, Michael."

"Can' feel you."

She suddenly realized what he was saying; he wasn't talking about not being able to feel his legs, he was talking about their connection. She swallowed the panic that set in with a vengeance and she choked back a sob. "Michael, listen to me, baby. You've gotta stay with me, do you hear me? You've gotta hold on. Please? Max will be here soon, I promise."

"N'ver leave you, M'ria."

Silence suddenly fell over them and she stared at him, her own breath freezing in her chest.

"Michael?" She leaned over him, searching for any sign that he was still alive and not finding any. He had stopped breathing, she couldn't locate a pulse, and when she placed her head against his chest she couldn't find his heartbeat. She sat up and her hands knotted in his shirt as she shook him violently. "Michael! Michael, you can't go like this… you can't leave me like this! You promised!" She screamed at his lifeless body, begged and pleaded with him to come back to her, until she had no strength left in her body and she slumped over him as heart-wrenching sobs were ripped from her very soul.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

An hour later a pair of hands reached out to gently extract Maria from Michael's lifeless body and she fought against them wildly, screaming as she struggled to maintain her hold on the person who had been her reason for living.

"Maria, you've gotta let him go," Max said, his voice thick with pain at the sight of his best friend lying there, unmoving. "C'mon, honey, let him go."

"I'll take her, Max," Kyle offered, pulling her to her feet and wrapping his arms around her tightly when she started to beat her small fists against his chest. He held her while watching Max attempt to revive Michael using his healing powers, not realizing he was holding his breath until the other man leaned back on his heels and shook his head.

"Is there anything else we can do?" Liz asked, her concerned gaze bouncing between her husband and her best friend.

"I can't help him," Max said, feeling that he had failed all of them. "He's been gone too long. The only thing we can do is bury him."

"No!" Maria screamed. "You have to fix this! I promised him you'd fix it!"

"Maria, that was a bad fall and his injuries were extensive; I don't know that I could've healed him even if we had gotten here in time." He shook his head. "I'm sorry."

"We can't bury him," Isabel said, speaking up for the first time. She moved closer to Michael's body and knelt down beside it as tears slipped silently down her face. "Not here."

"Not anywhere!" Maria broke free of Kyle's arms and paced restlessly, knowing she was being irrational and not caring. Her reason for living, for breathing, for everything, was lying dead on the ground, while everyone around him discussed what they should do with his body. _God, if she could only go back and stop him from being so damned impulsive and running out to look over that stupid overhang._ "Oh, my God!" She dried the tears from her face and forced her emotions back under control as she knelt down beside him and pressed a kiss to his cold lips. "I know how to fix this," she whispered.

"Maria?" Isabel's tone was wary, unsure of what type of approach to take with the woman who was suddenly, eerily calm.

"We have to take him to the Granolith," Maria announced suddenly. "It's capable of time travel, it protected the pods for years before you hatched, and it can bring him back." She nodded decisively. "We have to take him back to the cave."

The other four looked at each other, considering what she was saying. Maria was distraught over her loss and she was switching emotional gears in a very erratic manner, but none of them were ready to contradict her belief that the Granolith could solve the problem.

Max nodded when Liz caught his eye, silent communication passing between them with nothing more than a look. "We'll take him to the cave," he said decisively.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

The decision to take Michael to the cave proved to be the last decisive act Max had been able to make. As he had eased Michael's body down on the floor of the van with Kyle's help the reality of the situation had suddenly hit him and he would surely have fallen to his knees if the other man hadn't grabbed him and stabilized him against the side of the vehicle.

"Max, you can't fall apart right now," Kyle insisted. "There's too much at stake here. We've gotta hold it together for the girls, man." But he knew as soon as he leaned forward to get a good look at him that Max was lost and he wasn't going to be able to make any decisions for the group. "Okay, here's what we're gonna do," he said, taking that weight onto his own shoulders. "I'll lead the way and Isabel will ride with me. I think it'd be a bad idea to separate Liz and Maria at this point, and there's no way you're gonna separate Maria from Michael."

Max turned his head slowly, his gaze locked on the woman who was sitting on the floor next to Michael's body, his head cradled in her lap as she spoke to him quietly. If he hadn't known any better he would've thought the man lying there was simply napping, but he knew his best friend wasn't going to be waking from this sleep.

"Max, buddy, I learned a long time ago that where you guys and this whole alien mess are concerned just about anything is possible. We've seen too much and lived through too much to give up now. So let's go to the cave and see what happens."

"I'll follow you. Yeah, that's a… that's a good idea." Max nodded, suddenly galvanized into action, and he hurried around to the drivers' side, climbing in and starting the engine.

Kyle stopped Liz when she moved past him to step up into the van. "Liz?"

Liz swallowed hard and turned her head to look at him. "Yeah?"

"Are you gonna be able to keep an eye on both of them?" he asked. She had two people to watch over, the two most important people in her world, and he knew it wasn't going to be easy to see both of them in so much pain.

"I can handle them," Liz answered, praying she was right about that.

Kyle shut the door once she was safely inside and ran over to his truck when he saw that Isabel was already inside, waiting for him. _God, when was it going to stop? How much did they have to suffer before bad things stopped happening?_ He started the truck and pulled out of the driveway, heading towards the highway that would take them as close to home as they had been in way too long. His thoughts eventually turned to the reason that they couldn't go home and from there it wasn't long before his mind settled on the tragedy that was sending them back to where it had all began.

He had never really interacted with Michael, even before he had known about the guy being an alien. Michael had seemed dangerous before he had known about the powers he possessed, and after he knew the truth about him, Kyle had been certain that it only made him more dangerous. He had been shocked to learn that Maria was dating the guy, but after a while he had realized that it made a crazy kind of sense. She wasn't afraid of anything, and she was just as weird as Michael… weirder, maybe.

They had been on the road for a couple of months, dodging the F.B.I. Special Unit before he and Michael had connected. Once he had gotten to know the other man he had slowly started to change his opinion about him. Michael understood Kyle's love of sports, he liked motorcycles and sports cars, and he enjoyed watching attractive women at every possible opportunity despite the fact that he was clearly taken.

They had bonded over their common interests and he could easily remember how much it always pissed off Maria and Isabel when they had really gotten into one of their heated debates over hot chicks, cool cars, or sports. He had never understood why Maria had fallen so hard for Michael or why she put up with him until the day they had been sitting on a park bench in Santa Monica, debating which of the bikini-clad women was the hottest.

_The girls had been doing laundry in the laundromat across the street and Max was with them because… well, because he was still a newlywed and his brains were scrambled. Kyle hoped he would eventually grow out of that stage; the guy was really starting to cause a problem. The girls were beginning to think he and Michael needed to do things like offer to do the laundry, or compliment them, or other stupid things that Max was doing._

_"Okay, the brunette in front of the deli," Kyle pointed out._

_"Nah, dude, you're way off. The redhead in the thong, she's definitely hotter."_

_Kyle shook his head. "You can't be serious, man!" He shook his head when he realized that his companion wasn't going to be swayed in his opinion. "Whatever. Wonder what the chances are that Isabel could be talked into wearing one of those?"_

_Michael just snorted and turned his attention towards the ocean._

_"Y'know, Maria's pretty hot too," Kyle mused, almost to himself. "I'll bet in that get-up she'd be - " He felt the man sitting at the other end of the bench tense up and he turned his head to look at him; in that instant he knew he had made a huge mistake and crossed a line that was never meant to be crossed._

_Michael's expression had been beyond pissed off and his eyes had narrowed dangerously as he spoke, his voice controlled, but laced with anger. "I'm only gonna say this once; Maria's not some chick in a magazine and she's not one of these chicks parading around out here, so don't talk about her or treat her like she is, got it?"_

_Kyle swallowed hard. "Got it. Sorry." _

_Nothing else had ever been said about the incident, but in a few short sentences he had seen a little of what Maria saw in Michael. He had made his feelings for his girlfriend clear without making romantic declarations or spouting bits of poetry - characteristics that were better suited to Max. Michael had simply cut through all the bull and gone straight to the heart of the matter without any sort of fanfare. _

He couldn't believe that the big alien was dead.

He glanced at Isabel as he led the way out to the highway, knowing that Michael's accident was dredging up memories and emotions that she kept buried deep inside in order to avoid dealing with them.

He knew probably better than anyone else that she had never gotten over losing Alex. In the time that they had been living together he had gotten used to her silences, her moods, and her detached behavior. She didn't sleep much at night unless she had exhausted herself and just couldn't go any further. He had realized that it was in those late hours of the night when she would wander the apartment aimlessly that she felt safe enough to let her barriers down and he could see the old Isabel resurface.

He had caught her talking to the empty rooms on more than one occasion and when he had questioned her about it recently she had confided in him, explaining that talking to Alex helped. Under normal circumstances he would have cracked a joke about that, but after the time they had spent together in their cramped apartment he could see the difference in her on those nights and he had left it alone.

Watching her now he could see the obvious signs of tension, the cracks in the perfect façade she presented to the world, and he wondered if this would be too much for her. In the past few months they had gotten close enough that he didn't think twice about reaching over to take her hand, the gesture intended to let her know she wasn't alone.

_It was happening all over again._ After losing Alex she tried different things to make herself forget, but anything that had accomplished that feat had only been a temporary fix. She had jumped into a relationship with the first guy she had met, thinking that it would dull the pain that had become her constant companion. But it hadn't dulled the pain, it had only added guilt into the mix, and she felt like she had betrayed Alex by getting involved with Jesse and then marrying him. _What would happen to Maria if the Granolith couldn't bring Michael back? _

When Alex had been taken from them Isabel had been surrounded by family and friends, she had been at home where she could fall apart, knowing that someone would be there to catch her. Maria didn't have that luxury; they were cut off from their families, they lived four hours from each other to maintain their safety, and she didn't even have her best friend close by to help her through what would come after. She could feel the hysteria rising within her and she cast about for something to take her mind off of what was going on.

She stared out through the dirty windshield, absently noticing that Kyle still hadn't washed the truck even though she had reminded him at least half a dozen times over the past week. "How many times do I have to tell you to wash this damn truck? God, it's not like it's a difficult task."

Kyle considered letting her comments go unchallenged, but he knew she was looking for a fight, something to take her mind off of Michael. "I'm not the only one who drives the truck, Princess."

"I'd think you'd want the damn thing to be clean considering your many dates," she snarled, grateful that he was going along with her.

"Why? I don't date them because they're into my truck."

"Your bedroom is across the hall from mine, Kyle; I think it's safe to say that I'm aware of why you date them." She glanced at the side mirror, seeing the van following behind them, and quickly forced her gaze back to the front. "And since we're on the subject, your standards seem to be getting lower."

"What?"

"That woman you brought home on Friday night? Skank, Kyle, complete skank."

"Before you start judgin' who I'm sleepin' with, let me remind you of the guy you came home with last weekend… you do remember him, don't you?"

Isabel rolled her eyes. "I am not discussing my dates with you."

"So you can talk about mine but I can't talk about yours?" He shook his head. "Since when do we pull punches with each other? The guy was a complete loser and he ate _my_ cereal."

"God, Kyle, you've been bitching about that for a week! Move on to something else already."

Kyle's hand gripped the steering wheel tightly as he glanced at Isabel, thankful that she was bickering with him instead of getting lost in her thoughts. There were just too many bad paths that she could go down after seeing Michael like that and they all led back to that dark place that it had taken so long for her to find her way out of after losing Alex. He jumped back into the conversation when she snapped off another irritated remark and he threw one back at her to keep her mind occupied.


	4. Chapter 3b

**Part 3b**

In the van Max was staring at the truck in front of him, focusing on maintaining an exact distance between the vehicles. He felt like he was going to lose his mind and he didn't know how to even begin dealing with losing Michael. He refused to let Maria's misguided beliefs get his hopes up because he had no misconceptions about the powers that the Granolith possessed.

He had felt the emptiness in Michael's body when he had tried to connect with him, the lack of essence that had made him alive. It was as if his very soul was gone and nothing remained but his cold, dead body. He hadn't been able to save his best friend, his brother, the only other male hybrid like him. The letters on the license plate in front of him suddenly became blurry and he reached up to rub his eyes, brushing away the tears that wouldn't stop falling.

Michael's intense presence had been a constant in his life for as long as he could remember, and now that he had been ripped away from them Max felt like he had lost the ability to breathe. _What about Maria?_ his conscience prodded. _What would happen to her once she was forced to accept that Michael was gone?_ He knew, after the summer they had spent hanging out a couple of years earlier, that when Maria DeLuca let herself love someone the way she loved Michael, it was intense and it was for the rest of her life. There was no halfway when she fell in love. She went into it just like she did anything else - with her whole heart and without holding anything back. _She would never get over losing Michael,_ he thought. _Never. Would she go on living or would she just give up?_

_What about Liz?_ he wondered. _What would happen to her if she lost Maria? She was one of the strongest women he had ever known, but she had barely survived losing Alex; what would happen if she lost Maria too? No one was that strong. If anything happened to Maria, Liz would lose it. Their friendship, their bond, was too strong, and Liz just wouldn't be the same without Maria around._

He glanced in the rearview mirror, reaching up to readjust it so he could check on his wife. He could barely make out their shadows in the darkness, relying on what little light was provided by the headlights reflecting off of the truck in front of them.

Liz rubbed Maria's back, wishing she knew what to say in this situation. Her best friend was convinced that the Granolith was going to make things right again, fix it so that Michael wasn't dead, but Liz wasn't convinced that it was the answer. She was worried about how Maria was going to handle it if her plan backfired and the trip was for nothing. She watched the other woman as she carefully cradled Michael's head in her lap, rocking him gently as she spoke to him in such a soft voice.

Maria loved the surly, ill-mannered alien and if the Granolith couldn't save Michael, it was going to destroy her. She knew what it would do to her to if the unthinkable happened and she ever lost Max. She had felt him die when she was in Vermont, but a miracle had happened and she had gotten him back. Now Maria was going through a similar tragedy, but Liz had her doubts that such a miracle could happen twice, even with the hybrids and the mystery surrounding their existences.

"Maria…"

The blond slowly raised her head to look at her friend in the near-darkness. Her fingers continued to comb through his spiked hair, the contact necessary to her sanity. "He loves me, y'know." It was a statement, not a question. "I know most people don't understand him, they don't know what I see in him, but he loves me."

Her gaze dropped back down to him and her fingers traced over his features, ignoring the fact that his flesh was so cold. "Even when he was…" she swallowed with difficulty, "leaving, when he thought he was leaving me for good, he promised that he would never leave me." Tears spilled over and tracked down her cheeks. "He struggled to keep breathing long enough to tell me that… he promised."

She folded her body over him, her forehead pressed against his as she fought against the wave of desolation that she could feel trying to take hold of her. "It'll be okay, Michael, the Granolith will fix everything," she whispered.

Liz realized that she fell into that category of people Maria had been describing as she watched them; she had never understood Michael, and she had never known what it was that Maria saw in him. After months of being on the run with them, living in cramped quarters, and listening to their constant bickering, she had been ready to dump him on Maria's behalf. He was unbearable, rude, sarcastic, and she had never once seen him do a single thing to deserve his girlfriend's love and respect.

Their relationship had been strange, it had been filled with intensity, and it had certainly lacked the fairy tale quality, but now that it was too late Liz could see that she had never recognized what was right in front of her eyes. In his own way, nonverbal, gruff, and abrasive, Michael had loved Maria with a depth that defied explanation; mere words had never been enough to convey his feelings and he had known that. His last words… his last breath, had been for Maria, to reassure her that she wouldn't be alone.

Liz glanced up when she felt the van slowing and then turning. She could tell that they had left the highway, the bumpy ride indicating that they were traveling off-road now. She made her way up to the front, resting on her knees beside her husband. His knuckles were white from gripping the steering wheel so tightly. She could see the tears silently tracking down his cheeks and his pain was so close to the surface that she could feel it as if it were her own.

"Hey," she said softly, "how're you holding up?"

Max shook his head and used his shoulder to dry the right side of his face. "Do you think this is gonna work?" he asked, his voice rough.

"No. I think she doesn't know how to deal with this and she's desperate to come up with any possible solution that will put off the inevitable." She rubbed his shoulder. "I'm sorry, Max."

He nodded but kept his gaze glued to the truck in front of him as it bounced through the desert. He couldn't look at her; if he did he was going to lose his tenuous grasp on his control and he would fall apart. He took his right hand off of the steering wheel long enough to point out the outcropping of rocks looming up ahead. The cave where the Granolith was hidden was located within the towering boulders that were now just minutes away.

"I'll let Maria know."

Kyle parked in front of the mountainous rock formation and stared at it in silence for several minutes. He pushed the button on the side of his watch to illuminate the face so he could read the time. 3:37am. Next to him, Isabel had opened the door and was staring out into the night. She had fallen silent after arguing with him for the first couple of hours, but she had managed to hold herself together so far. He climbed out of the truck and stretched; his body was stiff from sitting in one position for so many hours and he could feel his spine popping into place.

Once Max pulled up beside them he went to help them carry Michael's body up the path that led to the secret entrance. Near the entrance Max waved his hand over the place where the sensor was hidden and after a moment a handprint became visible and a slab of the rock moved inward and slid back to allow them to enter. Inside the cave they gently placed his body on the ground and they all stood back as Maria slowly approached the mysterious object that was the Granolith. She walked around it several times, watching it for any indication that it was aware of their presence.

"How do you turn it on?" she asked, the question not aimed at any one specific person.

"It was only active once when the key was inserted."

Maria glanced at Max when he spoke, and forced her own voice to remain level in response to his ragged tone; she couldn't afford to fall apart now. "And we don't have that key?" He shook his head and she turned back to the machine, staring at it as she considered her next action. "I don't know how you work or how you communicate, but I need you to speak to me." The only sound in the chamber was the hum that emanated from the general vicinity of the Granolith. She walked up to it and placed her hand against it, barely controlling the urge to just curl up in a fetal position on the ground and let go. "You have to help him," she whispered, leaning forward and placing her forehead against the smooth surface. It wasn't cool as she had expected, instead it was warm to the touch and she could feel the vibrations that pulsed through it.

"Maria, it isn't gonna speak to you," Isabel said. "I've talked to it before, remember? It didn't respond to me either." She kept her gaze focused on the Granolith, irrationally hating it for everything that it represented and blaming it for everything that she had lost. "It's just a stupid alien device or something; it's not a sentient being with a conscience or the ability to - "

"The ability to interact with lesser beings is indeed within my capabilities," a mechanical voice rumbled. It seemed to come from all around them and not just from the device at the center of the chamber that was now glowing brightly. "Why have you come here?"

Maria took a couple of steps back and stared at it in awe. It could understand her and answer her. To her knowledge, and according to Isabel's own statement, it had never done that in the past. Why? Oh, right, because everything had to be so complicated where the aliens were concerned! But maybe it knew what they were there for, why they had come to seek it out. Maybe it knew somehow that it had to save Michael… or Rath, as the Granolith probably knew him. It was a question of life or death, so maybe that was why it had started to speak. "Granolith, you have to help us," she said insistently. "There was an accident and Michael… he was… he…" _Oh, God, she couldn't say it! If she said it, it would be true!_ "He was hurt, badly, and - "

"You have brought him to me for what reason?"

Maria couldn't believe the Granolith's controlled responses. She hadn't expected it to be all warm and fuzzy or anything, but it was unemotional to the point of being cold. "I want you to fix it, to… to fix him. You're capable of many things and it's your job to watch over the hybrids."

"You have come with a request that cannot be granted." The response was dispassionate. "Once the hybrid ceases to exist there is no possibility of generating new life within it."

"Okay, fine, I'm not asking you to do that. But, you're capable of time travel."

"It is within my abilities."

"Then tell me how to do that, how to go back in time to prevent this from happening."

"Your request cannot be granted."

Maria's patience was quickly coming to an end. "Why not? If you possess the ability, why would you refuse to help him? He is - "

"Altering the events of the past in order to preserve a single being is not allowed. For many years the sacred laws have existed to prevent those who would change the past, present, or future for their own gain."

"You're refusing to help him? I seem to remember an occasion where you allowed time travel, so why are you refusing it now?" she demanded, shocked. She wasn't going to let the Granolith get away with this answer. She had heard all about time travel from Liz.

"The creators must be obeyed. Your request cannot and will not be granted."

"What? No! Come back here, we're not finished! You've got to - " Maria stopped when Liz put her hand on her shoulder, silently holding her and trying to make her realize that the Granolith had stopped interacting with her. The light that had been glowing so brightly while the Granolith was speaking dimmed suddenly, leaving only the dull green glow behind. Maria stared at the device, shell-shocked, unable to comprehend what it meant and unwilling to accept what it had said. She reached blindly for Liz's hand, desperately seeking strength in her best friend as she stood there, sightlessly staring at the powerful alien device, carefully hidden in a small cave near Roswell, New Mexico.

"Why doesn't it want to use time travel to save Michael?" she questioned in a lost voice. "It helped you and Max in the other timeline, remember? So, why is it refusing to help Michael? After everything he's been through… Hank, his miserable existence with that abusive animal, how can the Granolith do this? It can't just leave things this way… it can't just let Michael stay dead! It's not fair, Liz, it's not FAIR!"

Liz held Maria closer, trying her best not to break down and cry. She had an idea why the Granolith had refused to use its power to allow time travel. As it had said, it was against the rules, but in that first timeline Future Max had mentioned that she and Serena had modified the Granolith for time travel. Maybe they hadn't modified it only for that purpose, but they had bent the rules to use it for time travel. But the truth was she had no idea where to begin to alter the device. She hadn't been able to do it on her own in the first timeline, and Serena didn't exist in this one. Or she hadn't met her. Either way, she had no idea who or where she was.

Kyle looked around at his friends, his family, and knew that he was going to have to be the one to bring up the difficult, but necessary task that needed to be completed. It wasn't going to get any easier the longer they put it off, but he needed to do it in a way that would keep Maria from losing it. They had to be far away from Roswell, well on their way back to their new homes before that could be allowed to happen.

"Maria." He moved closer to her but refrained from taking her in his arms and offering comfort. "Maria, it'll be daylight in less than two hours, and you know we can't risk bein' seen around here. Maybe this…" he waved at the Granolith, "thing, whatever it is, has the answers, maybe it holds the key to getting Michael back, but it's not givin' it up right now." He crouched down a little to meet her gaze, easily reading the denial in her green eyes. "It's already admitted that it's capable of time travel, right? Well, we can come back when we have more time, convince it to do what needs to be done, but we've got to…" He felt it like a punch to the gut when recognition settled into her expression.

"You want to bury him. Here? In the desert? He'll be alone here, Kyle! You want me to just leave him here? I won't even be able to - "

Kyle looked at her with pity in his eyes. She was talking about Michael as if he were in a coma, not dead. Maybe that was why she hadn't totally lost it yet; it's what was holding her together. "Maria, we can always come back and try to convince this damn thing to cooperate, but we're runnin' outta time here. You know it's not safe here, and Michael would be havin' a fit if he knew everyone was here, risking discovery and capture just to bring him back."

Maria turned her head to look at Michael's body, swallowing with difficulty as she nodded. "You're right; that would piss him off. I just… I need a few minutes, Kyle."

He nodded in understanding. "We'll wait outside." He glanced at Liz, seeing that she had been listening to the entire conversation. Max and Isabel both looked shell-shocked and neither of them said a word as she gently herded them out of the chamber.

"Kyle?"

He turned back to Maria, his body halfway through the entrance. "Yeah?"

"You know that spot on the other side of the rocks? The shady spot by those scraggly little bushy things?" She cleared her throat when he nodded. "Michael liked that spot."

"I'll take care of it." He was gone then, leaving her alone with Michael's body.

"You never could make things easy, could you?" she murmured, dropping down beside Michael. Her fingers tangled in his soft hair and her heart thudded painfully in her chest as her other hand trailed down the side of his face and she registered just how icy his skin felt. "We've beat the odds before, Michael, and we'll beat them this time too. We've never been the type of people to just sit back and let life happen." She chuckled tearfully. "I'd like to think I was a little more diplomatic than you, but we made things happen, didn't we?" She pressed a lingering kiss to his lips. "We're not finished, Spaceboy, and no matter what it takes, I promise you I'll find a way to fix this."

"Maria?"

She wiped the stray tears from her eyes and turned her head to look at Kyle.

"We're ready."

"So are we." She kissed Michael one more time before standing up.

Half an hour later she watched as the last of the sand was smoothed out over the unmarked grave. She forced her emotions further down, terrified of what would happen if she released them. She had to hold it together; she had made Michael a promise and she had every intention of keeping it. _This was only temporary_, she reminded herself.

Her head snapped up when she heard a choking sound and tears suddenly clouded her vision when she saw Max drop the shovel in his hand and fall to his knees. Liz hurried to his side, kneeling in front of him and taking him in her arms. She cradled his shaking body, her hands rubbing his back in a soothing gesture while she whispered words of comfort through her own tears.

Not far away Isabel was watching her brother and Kyle was watching her as she began to shut down and close herself off.

Maria took it all in and felt her emotions building up into an uncontrollable mass and she knew she had to get away or she wasn't going to be able to keep it in any longer. Her gaze turned up towards the rocks that jutted out against the sky that was beginning to lighten, hinting at the pending sunrise.

Her emotions began to mutate from sadness, loss, hurt, and emptiness, to anger that was burning a hole in her chest and without conscious thought she began walking back to the cave.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Michael stared at his reflection in the mirror over the sink, annoyed that he couldn't recall the nightmare that had interrupted his sleep. Nightmares weren't a normal occurrence for him and having one that had created the unfamiliar feeling of fear while the images remained elusive pissed him off. He didn't like experiencing things that he couldn't remember later, and the fact that fear had been involved bothered him more than he cared to admit.

After the night he'd had he should've been able to come back to his hotel room and sleep straight through what was left of the night. They had gone back to her house for a very long night and he was incredibly pleased with his performance. She… _what was her name anyway?_ He frowned at his reflection for a moment before shrugging. _He didn't give a rats' ass what her name was._ Whatever her name was, she had been even more aggressive in bed than she had been at the jail and he'd had his hands full with her.

Generally, sex of that nature left him pleasantly worn out and once he'd ditched whatever lucky bitch had benefited from his sexual prowess, and he was back in his own bed he enjoyed the sex-induced coma that inevitably came afterwards.

But that luxury had been denied him this time and even his morning run hadn't taken the edge off. Knowing he was no closer to an answer he pushed away from the mirror and packed his things back into his saddlebags, left the key on the nightstand, and walked outside to his motorcycle.

He looked up at the pre-dawn sky before checking his watch. He could be in Santa Fe by noon and in some sweet little thing's panties soon after. He threw his leg over the seat and settled into it before turning the key and revving the engine several times. An old man sitting on the porch reading his newspaper by porch light looked at him in disapproval and Michael flipped him off and revved the engine once more for good measure.

He had spent the entire night fucking a beautiful woman and he was irritable and ready to pick a fight with someone. Maybe when he got to Santa Fe he'd find some idiot in need of a good ass-kicking and get that out of his system before looking for some hot bitch in need of fucking. He rolled his shoulders back and took a deep breath before pulling out into the quiet street.


	5. Chapter 4

**Part 4**

Maria ran into the chamber that housed the Granolith, stumbling in her haste to reach it. Her heart was pounding from the exertion of climbing the side of the rocky incline and her emotions were swirling darkly within her, building into a fury that couldn't be contained.

Her breathing was rapid as she inhaled and exhaled loudly through her nose. She paced around the device, her eyes moving over it as she considered the best plan of attack. Her movements were stilted, edgy, and she wanted nothing more than to destroy the thing, but it was her only hope of getting Michael back.

"You think you're so damned powerful, so important, so worthy of being worshipped or revered, or whatever it is that your civilization uses you for, that you can just sit here and refuse to save someone who is essential to the survival of your own people!" she ranted. "You can travel through time, you can undo a goddamned alien invasion, and you've apparently had way too much time to sit here on your… your… your ass if you've got one, and let yourself begin to believe you're a hell of a lot more important than you are! If you're so important why are you here on earth and not on Antar, being worshipped by your public? You have the power to choose whether or not someone lives or dies and you do nothing, you worthless piece of shit!" She screamed in frustration and picked up a baseball-sized rock, preparing to throw it at the device when it began to glow.

"Yet you seek my assistance," the mechanical voice rumbled.

Maria shook her head, disbelief warring with a burning hatred when she heard the cold, detached voice once more. She was certain she had detected arrogance in its statement and that only fueled the flames of the fire that was raging inside of her. "You can alter time, prevent that accident from happening."

"It is within my abilities."

"I _know_ it's within your abilities, you useless sonofabitch! You let Max travel back in time to change it. Is that because he's the king so it automatically means he's worthy of breaking the sacred rules?" She glanced down at the rock in her hand and hurled it at the Granolith, unsurprised when it merely bounced off of what she was sure was a force field of some sort. "You won't protect him but you'll protect yourself." Her voice dripped with disdain. "I'm waiting for an answer to my question."

"The choice to alter time to save a single being is not within my powers, it is strictly prohibited by the creators. Modifications were made at the time - "

"I don't give a damn about modifications!" she yelled, unable to reconcile how an entity such as this could possess such power and do nothing with it. "Do you know where your king is? He's on the verge of losing his sanity right at this very moment because his brother, his best friend, and his second in command is lying dead under six feet of sand!" She beat her fists against the device, uncaring that it wasn't registering the fact that it was being hit over and over.

She didn't notice the prickling sensation at first, the feeling that something was probing deep within her subconscious, but when it became more insistent she jerked back away from the Granolith. "What're you doing?"

"Your emotions are connected to the hybrid."

"What have I been saying since I got here?" she asked, frustrated by its lack of understanding.

"This hybrid is necessary to your existence?"

Relief flooded her system when it posed the question in its controlled, emotionless tone. "Yes!"

"You would go anywhere to be with him?" It chose its next words carefully. "There could be changes, possibly differences - "

"I don't care! Just get me back to Michael; I don't care about anything else!" Maria's breath froze in her throat for several seconds, wondering what the Granolith had in mind.

She would almost swear, as she stood there looking at it, that it was… thinking, considering all aspects of some problem before making a decision. It had turned a dark shade of blue, but the glow surrounding it showed that it was active, that whatever being was inside was somehow working towards a solution for Michael.

She had managed to awaken its conscience, its responsibility towards the hybrids. Or, at the very least, she had made it consider the possibilities. She wasn't sure what it intended to do but something monumental was going to take place and she was ready, she could feel it in her bones. She would do anything to save Michael; she would travel to the ends of the world, the universe, to get him back and give him a new chance at the life that he so deserved.

A red light shot out of the Granolith, startling her. She raised her head to look at it, fascinated by the beautiful burgundy color that it was displaying. A strange sensation began to take her over, leaving her powerless; she could feel her own body escaping her control and she was physically drawn to the device until she finally collided with it. Expecting to be hurt, she closed her eyes, unaware that she was being drawn through the Granoliths' shield, unharmed. She opened her eyes and her gaze darted around, realizing that she was inside the device.

Fear seized her and the feeling of truly being alone suddenly overcame her. She had a last thought for her mother, whom she regretted leaving the way she had, doing to her mother what her father had done to them so long ago. She thought about Liz and she hoped that she and Max were going to be truly happy. Kyle, Isabel, Alex, the sheriff, Laurie, Jeff Parker, Grandma Claudia, Brody, and Sydney… all people she had known and loved, and whose faces were swirling in her mind.

She tried desperately to focus on Michael, to tell herself that she was going back to him, when everything suddenly began to accelerate. Feeling dizzy and afraid she quickly recalled Max's tale of the Granolith taking Tess inside and sending her to Antar. It had done this before and it was going to do it again, for Michael. Relief settled over her as her eyes closed, her breathing began to slow down, and a welcoming black veil fell over her, ready for the Granolith to take her to whatever time and place it had chosen.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Kyle's gaze shot up to the entrance that led to the Granolith when he felt a rumbling beneath his feet.

"Oh, my God," Liz whispered, leaning away from Max so she could look towards the cave. A bright flash of light caused her to turn away and close her eyes to protect herself. Fear shot through her and she wondered what the Granolith had done as she rushed inside to get to Maria and remove her from the cave. Desperately, she shoved displaced rocks out of her path, clawing her way into the pod chamber, ignoring Kyle who was yelling at her to come back. She couldn't listen to him; she wasn't going to let another friend die or get hurt by an alien, whether that alien was alive or not. She reached the pods and crawled inside one of them, feeling Max's soothing presence for just a fleeting moment. She smiled slightly. _She was inside Max's pod, no doubt about it._ She continued on, her hands scraped and bruised, but her will to reach Maria strong enough to allow her to push past the pain.

She finally reached the inner chamber where the Granolith stood tall and her eyes scanned the small area, noting that there was no sign of Maria inside. She turned her eyes towards the device, almost afraid to ask it what had happened. She was trying to formulate a question when Kyle appeared behind her, followed by Max and Isabel. Liz's eyes immediately went to Max. He looked so devastated, so broken, and she couldn't stand to see him in so much pain. She went to him and took him into her arms.

"Max, whatever happened here, the Granolith is going to fix it. I don't know how, but Michael will be back."

His dark, pain-filled eyes turned towards her. She sounded so sure. _Why wasn't she scared for Maria?__She wasn't there any longer, that much was obvious, but they didn't know where she was… where the Granolith had sent her._ He spoke then, his voice husky and unsure. "Liz, I know you think that, but if the Granolith had changed its mind, sent her back in time, don't you think the change should have been instantaneous for us? Shouldn't we be… somewhere else, with no recollection of…" Max stopped, unable to say the words. Michael's death was too fresh, too unbearable to possibly put into words.

Liz bit her bottom lip, worrying it with her teeth. She was thinking the same thing but she didn't want to worry Max or Isabel, who was looking at her with hope in her eyes. She wished she had all the answers, but she didn't. She turned towards the Granolith and asked the question they all wanted the answer to,

"Where is Maria?"

The Granolith glowed for a second before answering. "She is where she is meant to be."

"Where?" Liz questioned insistently. Her best friend was lost somewhere without her, without any of them, and she had to know what had happened. "Where? Or rather, when?"

The light in the cave seemed to get weaker and weaker until the alien device turned black. A soft, purring sound could be heard, as if the Granolith had fallen into a deep sleep and wasn't there any longer. Liz was on the verge of kicking it to get an answer to her questions when Kyle's voice reached her.

"We've gotta get outta here now," Kyle said as he reached out to grab Isabel's arm and pulled her to her feet. "There's no way that went unnoticed." He helped Liz get Max out of the cave and they all ran as fast as their legs could carry them.

Liz felt a twinge of guilt for leaving Maria behind but she was gone, somewhere out of reach. She sent a prayer to God above that wherever she was, Michael was with her.

Kyle motioned for her to get into the drivers' seat while he reached over to secure the seatbelt around Max. He was still unresponsive, his features ravaged by a devastation too great to comprehend. "Go back home," he instructed when Liz slid in behind the wheel and looked at him. "No phone calls. Matter of fact, give me your phone and I'll have Isabel dispose of yours and ours at the same time. Use the usual method to contact us in three days to let us know you're safe, and we'll do the same." He sighed as he patted Max's shoulder. "You guys be careful and stay off the interstate as much as possible."

Isabel watched them go before turning back to look at the path the Granolith had taken. "Good luck," she whispered.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Michael scanned the landscape as the wind whipped past him and he barely glanced at the large, colorful sign on the left side of the highway that proudly proclaimed the next town had the best food this side of the border. His stomach rumbled, reminding him that he hadn't eaten since lunchtime the day before and he sped up, cutting off another car to make the exit in time. He smirked at the sound of a horn, absently wondering if people really thought they were really making their displeasure known by honking their horns.

He drove through the town, eyes watching for a bar that would meet his requirements. He didn't want anything nice; he wanted something that catered to people who didn't ask questions, who weren't interested in talking. _And, hey, if it just happened to have strippers that was just a bonus._ The town was located relatively close to a military installation so he wanted a bar that catered to military types. He found the area that he was looking for after half an hour and he parked in front of the first bar and walked inside to check the place out.

The interior was dimly lit, the men gathered in groups around the pool tables or the catwalk where the strippers would soon be coming out to provide the entertainment. He settled at a table at one end of the bar and ordered a drink, debating which of the men would be most likely to ignore regulations and engage in a fight.

He was in the process of taking a drink from the bottle in his hand when a feeling of warmth and… _what was that, excitement?__Happiness?__What the hell was going on?_ He looked around the bar, already knowing what he would find, and his irritation shifted up a notch when he verified that there wasn't a single woman in sight.

Excitement he could understand - if he had been in the presence of an attractive woman and sex was on the menu. Happiness, well, he wasn't sure he believed such a notion actually existed. He scanned the room once more, seeking a viable target, an opponent who could hold their own against him. He was barely conscious of the music getting louder, paying no attention to the women slinking around on the stage as he felt the aggression surging through his veins. First nightmares and now warm, fuzzy feelings; he didn't understand what was going on, but it was pissing him off.

He looked up when something soft slid against his neck and he turned his head to look at the stripper, already bare from the waist up, as she slid a silky scarf around his neck. He watched her as she moved around him, her body completely in sync with the music as she danced. He waited for the familiar feeling of arousal, anticipating it when she straddled him and started to grind her pelvis against him. He was ready for it… any second now…

He smirked in satisfaction when his body finally responded to the stimulation, but his expression quickly switched to impassive when her surprised gaze flew to his. She ground down harder against his erection and leaned in to whisper in his ear.

Michael's dark eyes skimmed over the sea of female flesh behind her, all in various stages of nudity and he frowned when he realized that there wasn't a single one there that he was interested in. His body was responding but not the way it normally did and it was pissing him off. _What the fuck was up with that?_ he wondered, feeling anger pushing through the surface and he knew he had to do something, quick.

"Slow starter, hmm?" she growled throatily.

His eyes turned to ice in the space of a heartbeat. "Funny thing about the male body," he muttered coldly, "give it enough stimulation and it'll react predictably."

The woman's movements stilled and she frowned. "What?"

"Get lost, bitch; my dick doesn't go near anyone who's been ridden as much as you."

"Don't talk to the lady like that, man."

Michael looked up at the man who had spoken and felt adrenaline rush through his veins. This was what he had been looking for when he had chosen this particular bar; the man defending the _lady's_ honor was big, military, and he would be able to hold his own in a fight. He shoved the woman off of him, ignoring her indignant shout as he stood and faced off against the man. He met the challenging gaze directed at him and his fists clenched at his sides in anticipation of the coming fight.

"You owe the lady an apology."

"Not gonna happen," Michael muttered as he swung hard. Satisfaction washed over him when his fist connected with the man's jaw, the sound of flesh and bone connecting giving him the release he had been waiting for.

People scattered to get out of the way when the man charged towards him, bending at the waist and ramming his shoulder into Michael's gut, lifting him up off of the floor. He brought his hands down sharply, the sides connecting with the Marine's neck. The man released him and he dropped back down to his feet.

The man quickly recovered and came after him again, this time with a quick uppercut that connected with Michael's jaw and he felt his head snap back from the force of the blow. He stumbled back several steps and hit the side of one of the pool tables, momentarily pausing to breathe. He wiped blood from the corner of his mouth and focused on getting his breathing back under control. He reached back and his right hand curled around the pool cue that had been abandoned by one of the players when the fight had started.

The Marine came after him again and he swung the pool cue into the man's ribs, rolling his shoulders back when the man grunted and backed off momentarily. It was only a matter of seconds before the big man advanced on him once more and Michael threw the pool cue on the floor before launching himself at the man.

He took a sharp hit to his ribs and he knew it was going to leave a bruise but he didn't care, he just wanted to do some damage. He got in several satisfying punches before someone hit him from behind and he automatically folded in on himself for a moment. _Kidney shot_, he thought, wincing. _Great, now he was gonna be pissin' blood for the next couple of days._ He straightened up, pushing the pain away, and whirled around to look at the man who had thrown the punch while his back was turned.

He looked at the young guy, maybe nineteen or twenty years old, probably a new recruit, and he saw red. He barreled into the younger man, shoving him back until the guys' back hit the edge of the bar. It took three well-placed punches before the guy slumped to the floor unconscious.

"Dumbass," he snorted as he turned back to the Marine and flexed his hands.

"I think you two have done enough damage for today," a new voice spoke up above the silence that had fallen over the crowd.

Michael glanced over his shoulder and frowned at the cops making their way through the sea of customers who had gathered to watch the fight. _God, if this day got any worse he was gonna throw himself off of the tallest building he could find._

"We're gonna take you boys down to the jail," the first cop said. "Maybe a night in lockup will calm you down and make you think twice about getting into barroom brawls." He approached the two combatants without any concern, pulling out a pair of handcuffs and securing Michael's wrists behind his back while his partner did the same to the other guy.

"You're wastin' your time," Michael said. "I'll be out in an hour."

"Son, you'll be sittin' in a holdin' cell in an hour."

"I want my phone call."

"You'll get your call when we get to the station," the second cop spoke up as he herded the big Marine outside.

Michael shoved the cop back when he reached out to take his arm. "I can walk just fine on my own," he snarled.

He was demanding his phone call as soon as they walked through the front entrance and the cop finally removed the handcuff from his left wrist and attached the second cuff to a metal ring mounted to a desk. The man grabbed the phone from the other end of the desk and slammed it down on the scarred surface in front of Michael.

"Call who you wanna call, boy, but you're spendin' the night in a cell."

"Wanna bet?" Michael dragged the man's chair closer and took a seat, slouching down and staring at the man insolently as he punched a number in. He propped his feet up on the edge of the desk and leaned back, waiting for an answer. When the call was finally answered from the opposite end by a deep, gravelly voice he grinned; he had managed to drag the old man out of bed again. "Hey, Xavier, gotta problem," he said by way of greeting.

Xavier Coulson considered throwing the phone into the pool and ignoring the man on the other end. Even from thousands of miles away Michael Guerin was giving him a headache. "What've you gotten yourself into this time?"

He relayed his current situation to the man on the other end of the phone and waited for the explosion he knew was coming. "You called the emergency number for this?" the man shouted angrily. He had two beautiful, exotic, women in his bed and he had been forced to put a halt to their activities when the call had been patched through. This wasn't the first time he had been on the verge of fucking a beautiful woman and had to wait because of some problem that had come up, a problem that Guerin had most likely caused; it was like the bastard had some sort of radar that went off any time Xavier was about to indulge his wilder side. "You do know that if you weren't so goddamned good at your job I'd have you shot for all the trouble you cause me, right?" He sighed in resignation. "Put the arresting officer on the phone. And Michael? If you call me one more time for this kind of bullshit I will have you shot."

Michael handed the phone over to the cop and watched the man's face as Xavier explained a few things to him. The color slowly drained from his face and his eyes widened as he glanced at the man he had taken into custody.

Michael's expression was smug as he walked out of the police station, knowing there would be no record of the incident. He debated whether he wanted to eat or not and finally decided to wait until he reached Santa Fe. He pulled his keys out and tossed them back and forth from one hand to the other as he passed the bar and moved to his motorcycle.


	6. Chapter 5

**Part 5**

Maria gradually became aware of a quiet humming sound that seemed to be coming from all around. After a few moments she realized that she was lying on the floor and that she could feel the vibrations being generated beneath her. She slowly pushed herself up into a sitting position and looked around, feeling disoriented and dizzy. She recognized the Granolith chamber almost immediately and valiantly fought against a wave of nausea as she shakily got to her feet.

She slowly stumbled over to the chambers' entrance, bracing her hand against the wall as the dizziness made the room swim before her eyes. Behind her the Granolith glowed brightly, the light pulsing for a moment. She ducked down to make her way out of the chamber when a mellow voice spoke up.

"Good luck."

She turned around and stared at the Granolith for several seconds before carefully shaking her head. The voice sounded quite different than it had earlier, it sounded almost mischievous. As if it had just played a prank on someone and it was quite pleased with itself. _Ridiculous_, she thought, blaming her whimsical thoughts on the feeling of disorientation that she hadn't shaken off yet. There was no way the cold, unemotional entity was capable of coming anywhere close to feeling any of those things.

She made her way into the outer chamber and stood, brushing her clothes off. Her gaze scanned over the pods, her eyes going directly to the one that had held Michael so safely after the crash. She ran her fingers over the edges, hoping to feel her connection to him come alive once more. She could feel… something, almost like a faint flicker, but it wasn't strong enough to convince her that everything was as it was supposed to be.

She turned to look at the other pods and gasped loudly when her eyes fell on one that still held a small body cocooned inside. _Tess,_ she realized, moving closer to it. _Had the Granolith sent her back, expecting her to kill the alien? To do whatever was necessary to prevent Tess from coming into their lives and causing so many problems?_

She hurried back into the innermost chamber, standing and facing off against the device that she had trusted to fix things. "What'd you do?" she demanded. "When I asked you to fix things, to bring Michael back, this isn't what you were supposed to do!" She paced restlessly, trying to put her argument together. "Did you send me back here to kill Tess? If her coming into our lives is the catalyst that set everything in motion from that point on, couldn't you have just removed her from the equation yourself?"

"If it would save your mate and prevent events from happening as they did, would you carry out your mission?"

The voice was almost… kind as it made its query and she frowned at it. _Could she do it? If it meant altering the past, removing the threat that Tess had been to all of them, could she make that choice? Alex would be alive, Michael would never have been near that ledge, Max wouldn't have been taken by Pierce, Michael wouldn't have had to kill Pierce and live with the guilt…_ There were so many reasons to do it, to take the life of one alien, and not just any alien, but Tess. _She wouldn't remember it, but could she take the life of a child, even if it was Tess?_

The Granolith glowed brightly for a moment and suddenly it was speaking again, its tone reassuring and warm. "Do not worry, this decision is not yours to make; this decision was made long ago. Accept my offering and begin your journey."

"What are you offering me?" she asked suspiciously.

"You have been given the power to affect the events of the past, present, and future." It made a sound close to a chuckle though it was mechanically distorted, and the light surrounding it pulsed once more. "Be more trusting, young human. I know what I am doing. Go now, and discover what I am offering you."

Maria stared at the alien device and shook her head. _Either she had hit her head somewhere along the way or this thing had a multiple personality disorder._

Confused and no closer to an answer she went back out into the pod chamber and crouched down to look at Tess more closely, studying the features of the alien in the shadowed pod. The pod was completely dark, the small body inside perfectly preserved, but dead. That meant that she had never hatched, never gone to Roswell… she hadn't brought Nacedo into their lives, Alex would still be alive… But, wait, if Alex hadn't translated the destiny book, the hybrids had never had the opportunity to go back to Antar, and Michael wouldn't have chosen to stay behind for her. What would that mean to their relationship?

She could feel sadness trying to push its way to the surface and she ruthlessly shoved it away before it could take hold of her. She had to stay strong if she was going to figure out the Granolith's riddle and hopefully find out what it was offering her. She hoped it was the opportunity to change the past as it had suggested; changing the past would affect the past, present, and future, right? So, that had to be what it was talking about.

She walked out of the cave and looked to the east, pausing a moment to watch the sun's slow climb into the early morning sky. _First things first_, she thought. She had to get to Roswell. Would she find the others there? There was only one way to find out. She glanced at the sunrise once more, estimating that she only had a couple of hours to make it out to the highway before the temperature began to rise to unbearable degrees as the sun got higher and reflected off of the sand below.

All of those long walks that Michael liked to take had conditioned her for the hike across several miles of desert and once he heard about this he wouldn't let her forget it. Her spirits momentarily dipped towards depression as she recalled her reason for having to hike across the desert in the first place.

"You can do this, Maria," she said, forcing her voice to be strong and not waver. She took a moment to breathe deeply, drawing strength from her belief that in the end she would have Michael back. "You can do this," she whispered once more before taking the first steps of her journey.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Michael tossed the saddlebags down on the hotel room dresser and sprawled out on the bed, linking his hands behind his head as he stared at the ceiling. He had opted to go with one of Santa Fe's nicer hotels because he liked room service, ready-to-order porn, and because uptight rich chicks were so much fun to mess with. There was a buffet of beautiful women at this hotel - he knew because he had staked out two others before deciding on this one. There were a couple of hot chicks on the staff too and he hadn't missed the day shift manager checking him out. _Hell, he could probably get a couple decent fucks outta her and get the room for free._ _Hmm, now there was an idea_, he thought. _It wasn't like he was struggling for money or anything, he was set financially, but hey, if he could save a few bucks and get laid, who was he to complain? _

He pushed himself up on his elbows and glanced down at his lower body, frowning at the lack of activity below his belt. He wasn't used to having to coax a response out of his dick; the damn thing normally had a mind of its own and as a rule he never questioned its judgment. But the last day or so it had not been behaving normally and he was beginning to really get pissed off at it.

"What the fuck is wrong with you?" he muttered. Maybe it wasn't sexually-related at all; maybe it was an alien thing. Maybe he was sick. "Yeah, right, you're sick and your dick's the only thing affected." _Nah, he'd never been sick a day in his life._ He stood up and walked into the bathroom to start the shower, uneasy about this recent turn of events. The problem wasn't just his dick; he wasn't feeling that usual drive to go on the prowl and nail whatever piece of ass caught his attention.

_He was tired, that's all it was_, he thought, denying that it could possibly be anything else. For the past few months he had taken on several jobs back-to-back and he was just exhausted, that's all it was. "Mentally and physically exhausted," he said, nodding to himself in satisfaction.

Once the water was hot enough he stripped out of his clothes and threw them on the floor behind him, determined to move past this annoying problem. He pushed the curtain back and stepped into the marble tub, bracing his hands against the wall under the showerhead as the scalding hot water poured down over him. He looked down at the pair of metal identification tags swinging from the chain around his neck and let his thoughts wander back to that bitch cop he had fucked… _Damn, had it really been more than twenty-four hours ago?_ She'd had a thing about his tags, fisting them while she rode him, as if she could control him that way. _No one could control him_, he thought defiantly. He had made it a point to take control every time she had reached for his tags, flipping her over and pounding her into the mattress. It had become a matter of competition once he realized that she had no intention of releasing her hold on the tags. She had given him a run for his money, but in the end he had won.

He glanced down when he felt the familiar tug of arousal and realized that his dick had decided to get back in the game. "I always win," he told it as he took it in hand. "You'd do well to remember that."

Feeling much better after jerking off and finishing his shower Michael toweled off and crossed the room to retrieve his cell phone. He scrolled through the numbers until he reached the one he wanted, pressing the call button and pinning the phone between his shoulder and ear.

"Somebody'd better be dyin'," the voice from the other end answered gruffly.

"Sounds like you're the one dyin', Indigo," Michael said loudly, easily identifying the hangover from the man's raspy voice. "Late night?"

"Guerin, where the fuck you been, man?"

He grinned at the man's sudden switch from hangover to sober. "Hidin' in plain sight as always. You got plans tonight?"

_When did he not have plans? _"You in town?"

"For a few days." Hanging out with Indigo would do him some good; the man knew where to find beautiful women. There would be no need for him to work to get laid, it'd be a piece of cake.

"Shit, man, why didn't you just come on over?"

_Good question, but one he didn't really wanna think about. _"Nah, just needed to kick back for a while."

The laughter from the other end was disbelieving. "You found a piece of ass to nail, didn't you? Bet you're at one of those overpriced hotels too, huh?"

"Overpriced, but who says I'm payin' for it."

"Manager's a woman, right?" Indigo laughed raucously. "You did the manager? Guerin, you're such a dog! You remember where my place is?"

Michael grunted in response.

"Head over this way when you're ready to get movin' and we'll make a night of it."

Michael disconnected from the call and tossed the phone on the bed beside him. He was gonna get at least a couple hours of sleep before he left the hotel; he was going to need it for a night out with Indigo because the man liked to party. He was twenty-nine years old and he acted like someone half his age most of the time.

He reached up to rub his eyes tiredly before grabbing an edge of the comforter and pulling it over himself as he rolled over and quickly fell asleep.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Maria stepped out of the truck, thanking the man behind the wheel, and stood back as he pulled away from the curb. The stretch of highway that led out past the part of the desert where the Granolith was housed wasn't well-traveled, but thankfully truck drivers used it on a regular basis. She was surprised that she had only seen the one truck, but luckily the man had stopped to give her a lift, and he had been pleasant but not very talkative.

She looked around the town she had grown up in, feeling more like a tourist than someone who had spent most of her life living there. It suddenly occurred to her that she didn't know what day it was; she should have asked the Granolith about that before leaving.

_It was a good thing that Roswell wasn't that large_, she thought as she started walking towards the Crashdown. The restaurant that Liz's parents owned was the best place to start and they would have a newspaper that she could check for the date without raising any eyebrows. She had to know at what point in time the Granolith had placed her so she would know what the others knew about the hybrids, the humans, the Special Unit, and each other before she approached them.

The bell above the door tinkled cheerfully as she stepped inside the familiar building, but as she looked around she was surprised to see that it had changed. She seated herself at one of the booths and asked for a glass of water and a newspaper when the waitress approached her. She hid a smile when the young woman walked away, rolling her eyes; people who came in and only ordered a glass of water rarely ordered anything else and they never left a tip.

Maria sipped her water and reached for the paper the waitress had placed on the other side of the table. Her eyes lifted to the date, relieved to find it correct. She glanced around the restaurant once more, wondering how it was possible for things to change so much in such a short time. They had been gone less than a year and in that time the Parkers had changed the interior from the alien theme it had always had to a bland, basic style that had no ambience to it.

She lowered her gaze back to the newspaper, opening it up and scanning over the bold headlines, looking for anything of interest. Her eyes locked on one that stated that the President was planning to seek another term in office and she shook her head as she looked at the large picture below the article.

"This isn't right," she muttered.

"You didn't vote for him either, huh?"

She glanced up at the man who had spoken. "I'm sorry?"

"I wasn't eavesdropping," he said as he motioned to the paper she held. "I overheard your comment and figured you must be reading about President Dennison's' plans to run for office again. Don't worry, I didn't vote for that idiot either." He smiled as he sat down across from her, uninvited. "You must be new in town; just passin' through?"

She nodded. "Yeah, just passing through; I used to live here, years ago." She took another sip of her water. "I don't know; I might stay for a few days. I haven't decided yet." She glanced at him over her paper. "You live here?"

"For a few years now."

"Well, maybe you'd know what happened to this place." She waved one hand around, indicating the walls around them. "It used to have a very different theme."

"The alien thing, right?" He nodded and shrugged. "The couple who owned it sold it not long after their daughter was shot and killed. They left the state, but I don't know where they moved to. I guess it was too much for them to - " He paused when the young woman across from him paled. "Hey, are you alright?"

Maria quickly forced her breathing back under control and her eyes locked on the man across from her. "Liz Parker? You're telling me Liz Parker is dead?"

"Yeah, did you know her or somethin'?"

"Years ago," she answered carefully.

"Well, I've gotta get going," he said, rising with an apologetic smile. "Work's waiting."

_What the hell was going on?_ If Liz was dead then Max hadn't saved her and that meant that she and Michael had never gotten together. She needed more information. Maria dropped the newspaper and hurried out of the restaurant, heading for the one place that would have the information she needed.


	7. Chapter 6

**Author's Note - This part contains a mature/adult scene which could be disturbing to some of you - exercise caution and read at your own risk!**

**Part 6**

Michael awoke from his nap, his heart thumping madly in his chest, and he pounded his fist against the mattress in frustration. _What was going on with him?_ he wondered, once again unable to recall the events in the nightmare, only remembering the feeling of fear that accompanied it.

He had to get a grip on these nightmares before they drove him crazy. He rolled over on his back and stared at the ceiling for several minutes before finally getting up so he could get dressed. He shook his head as he laced his boots up, unable to shake the irritating sensation of discomfort that seemed to be lingering longer and longer after each of the disturbing nightmares.

"You need to get laid," he muttered as he grabbed his leather jacket. He paused in front of the mirror and studied his appearance, nodding in satisfaction when he found nothing to change.

In the lobby he stopped by the front desk to remind the idiot behind the desk that he didn't want housekeeping in his room before going out to his motorcycle. He ignored the parking lot attendants as he walked into the valet parking lot, locating the motorcycle right where he had left it. He didn't trust anyone else to drive it and a little intimidation went a long way when it came to being allowed to park wherever he wanted to.

He checked the motorcycle to make sure no one had damaged it overnight and once he was satisfied he threw his right leg over the seat and settled into it. He was inserting the key when movement in the mirror caught his attention and he leaned back to get a better look. His eyebrows lifted above his sunglasses in interest when a tall blond in a thong bikini bent over the open trunk of a Jaguar and reached inside.

"See something you like?" she asked as she stood and turned around.

Michael shifted to look at her, carefully masking his expression as he met her knowing gaze. "Maybe." She knew she was hot and she didn't bother acting demure and coy, something that had his dick standing at attention within seconds. His eyes followed her as she walked up to him, enjoying the sway of her perfect hips as she moved. Everything about her screamed wealth and he wondered if she'd be willing to just move that thong aside and let him take her right there in the parking lot.

She removed her sunglasses as she came up next to him, boldly reaching down to scrape her fingernails over the denim covering his obvious erection. "_Maybe?_" she mocked with a teasing smile.

_Oh, yeah, she wanted him. He wasn't even gonna have to work for this one._ He leaned back and let her look him over, enjoying it when her deep blue eyes came to rest on his face.

"I'll bet with just the slightest bit of creativity you could take me for a ride I wouldn't soon forget."

_Was she suggesting…?_ Michael glanced down at the motorcycle and his dick got impossibly harder at the visual image that quickly sprang to mind. He could easily picture the blonde draped over the bike in front of him while he pounded into her from behind. "A ride you wouldn't soon forget? I'll take you for a ride you'll never forget."

She smiled at his cocky tone and applied just the right amount of pressure to his erection to make his hips jerk in response. "You're very sure of yourself."

His grin was conceited as he pressed his erection into her palm. "I have every reason to be sure of myself."

"Then I suppose it's time someone brought you down a notch or two." She withdrew her hand and slapped him hard across the face. "Women do not appreciate being treated as sexual objects."

Michael's mind was racing as he tried to make sense of what had just happened. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" he snarled.

"You are what's wrong with me. Men like you see an attractive woman and you automatically think they're just gonna drop to their knees for you."

"Hell, if that's what you're pissed about you can just put the bitch away; I wasn't waitin' for you to get on your knees. I'm more interested in fucking right now." He shrugged carelessly. "But, hey, if you wanna gimme a blowjob later that's cool too."

"So, what, you thought I'd just mount you right here in the parking lot?" She shook her head when he simply smirked. "You're completely disgusting,"

"Hey, I had all intentions of bein' the one doin' the mounting; all you've gotta do is enjoy the ride."

"Does this type of come-on typically get you laid?"

Michael smiled proudly. "It's never failed."

"Well, consider this your first failure, you cocky bastard."

"Psychotic bitch," he muttered, watching her walk away. He glanced down at his crotch and shook his head; he was so hard it was getting painful and he shifted uncomfortably. "Now you wanna act the way you're supposed to." He raised his head in time to see her toss a venomous look over her shoulder. He flipped her off and started the motorcycle, mentally willing his erection to disappear. He was still feeling _off_ and it was probably because of the damn nightmares that hadn't stopped. That was the only way to explain why he had just been turned down by… _No_. His pride refused to accept that. _He hadn't been turned down. No, that wasn't it at all. She had to be a lesbian. Yeah, that was it - that __**had**__ to be it. There was no other reason for a woman who looked like that to turn down what he was offering._ Now he had a mission - to nail her before he left Santa Fe.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Maria settled down at one of the computers in the Roswell Public Library and quickly set about searching the archives for the local newspaper. She started with the day of the shooting, doing everything she could to control her emotions as she read the article covering the death of her best friend.

_Why hadn't Max saved her? What could have stopped him from taking the risk that had brought them all together?_

She worked her way backwards, slowly scanning the headlines for anything involving her friends. She paused when she ran across an article about the sheriff, the headline reading: **Sheriff Valenti Resigns**. She read the short article detailing Sheriff Valenti's decision to resign and relocate to Denver, Colorado with his wife of seventeen years and their three sons.

_The sheriff was still married? And had three boys?_

She scanned through another year's worth of articles when Alex's name jumped out at her: **Local Boy Genius Accepted at Prestigious School on East Coast**. The article contained interviews with his parents and the reporter had done a good job of capturing their pride at their son's accomplishments. He had closed with a brief overview of the couples' plans to move back east with their son.

A paper from ten years earlier explained why Max hadn't healed Liz when the shooting had taken place. At nine years old he and Isabel had died in a car accident with their parents while coming home from visiting relatives out of state.

_What the hell was going on?_

She carefully searched the archives for any information about Michael and was surprised that there was no mention of him anywhere. She hadn't expected to find much, maybe just a few notices where he had been picked up by the sheriff for getting into trouble or maybe some mention of his foster father, Hank, but there was nothing.

She tried searching for information by typing his name in the search bar at the top of the web page but couldn't find anything on him. _This was just weird_… everything was different and she didn't know why. She leaned back in the chair and stared at the screen, her gaze locked on the cursor blinking cheerfully in the search box. After staring at it for a few minutes she leaned forward and typed her own name in and hit the enter button.

She frowned when a page popped up on the screen and prompted her to enter another section of the archives. She clicked on the button and her breath lodged in her throat when she read the bold typeface at the top of the page: _**Obituaries**_.

Maria DeLuca, daughter of Amy and Richard

DeLuca passed away on Wednesday afternoon

due to complications from a staph infection…

_Whoa! How could she be dead? It wasn't possible, she was sitting right there, reading… reading her own obituary,_ she realized. Her eyes widened as understanding suddenly dawned on her and she slumped down in the chair. _Oh my God._ The Granolith hadn't sent her back in time; it had sent her to a completely different universe. It was the only thing that made sense in this crazy place and it explained why everything was different.

She had to go back to the Granolith; it had to fix the mistake it had made. She hadn't asked it to send her to an alternate universe, she had asked it to fix things so that Michael wouldn't fall from the cliff and die.

_You have been given the power to affect the events of the past, present, and future._ The Granolith's words echoed in her mind even as something within her rebelled at the thought of going back to her own universe where Michael was no longer alive. _What could she possibly do here that would affect the events of the past, present, and future in her reality?_ she wondered.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Indigo Jeffries opened his front door when the rumbling engine of the motorcycle got closer, indicating that his company had arrived. He shook his head when he recognized the angry expression on the other man's face. _Someone or something had pissed Guerin off big time_, he thought as he walked along the sidewalk to the driveway.

"Took you long enough to get here, you self-centered bastard," he called out in greeting.

Michael looked up at the man who had spoken, unable to stop the grin that surfaced when he saw Indigo. They had saved each other's lives on more than one occasion and the man was probably the one person on this crappy planet that he could honestly call a friend.

Indigo was a couple of inches taller than Michael, African-American, and he was always ready for a good time. He had retired from the company a couple of years earlier after losing his left hand in an explosion; he had settled outside of Santa Fe with a financial settlement that ensured he would never have to work again, but he wasn't the type of man who could be idle for very long so he had started his own charter business.

"Who're you callin' a self-centered bastard, you one-handed sonofabitch?"

Indigo laughed boisterously and raised his right hand to shoot the finger at his old friend. Michael was the only one who had treated him normally after he had lost his hand and he appreciated that more than words could ever say. _Which was good,_ he mused, _because the last thing Guerin would want would be some mushy declaration of gratitude_. He lifted his left hand, extending the prosthetic attachment in the other man's direction. "I keep tellin' 'em the damn thing needs five prongs; it's just not quite the same flippin' people off when there's only three mechanical _fingers_."

"You finally getting the hang of that thing?"

"Yup, the doctors have released me from therapy." He frowned, thinking. "Course, that could have more to do with the fact that I got caught screwin' the therapist when she was supposed to be teaching me how to pick up a ball." He motioned for Michael to follow him inside the house. "I told her I'm right handed and I didn't need to know how to pick up a ball anyway. Hell, now that I'm outta the company the only thing I need to know is how to pick up a piece of ass when the mood strikes, and I've known how to do that since I was old enough to know what to do with my dick. She disagreed, so I had to prove her wrong."

"Uh-huh," Michael mumbled, certain there was more to the story. "So you got kicked outta therapy for screwin' the therapist?"

"Well, she might've been married to one of my doctors, or engaged." He shrugged carelessly. "I heard they're not together anymore."

"I'm guessin' he's the one who caught you screwin' her?"

"Man, she was so into it she didn't even know he was standin' right there while she was screamin' an' comin' so hard she almost blacked out." He pulled a couple of beers out of the refrigerator and turned to look at Michael. "She made therapy very… therapeutic." He held the first bottle in the crook of his left arm and popped the top off of the bottle before offering it to Michael.

"And you're not seein' her anymore?"

"Nah, she was a little too attached to the claw." He held his left 'hand' up and stared at it for a minute. "She was a good distraction while it lasted though." A wolfish grin graced Indigo's face. "You'd be surprised how many times I get offered a pity fuck because women feel sorry for me."

Michael snorted and took a long drink from the bottle in his hand. "If they're hot I hope you're takin' 'em up on their offers."

"Fuck yeah! Speakin' of fuckin', I invited a few women over later; figured I'll barbeque, we'll drink, screw a couple of 'em, and drink some more. Unless you'd rather go out, cuz we can do that too."

"Doesn't matter. They're hot, right? Cuz I'm not handin' out pity fucks to ugly chicks."

Indigo roared with laughter. "Man, you never change. No, they're all hot, trust me."

"And you ain't fucked none of 'em right? I don't want your sloppy seconds, Indigo."

"I've screwed a couple of 'em, but I'll let you know which ones." He nodded at the window that faced the acres of open land behind his house. "Feel like shootin' somethin'?" he asked, dark eyes shining brightly at the prospect of picking up a gun.

Michael leaned back in his chair a couple of hours later, the high-powered rifle cradled comfortably in his arms as he stared at the shredded targets in the distance. They hadn't talked while they were taking aim at the targets, focusing their concentration on besting each other. They had settled down at one of the tables on the deck a little while ago, talking about old missions and reminiscing over fallen comrades. Indigo had a tendency to mellow out as the alcohol began to seep into his bloodstream and he had stumbled slightly as he went back into the house to answer the door when the doorbell chimed.

He looked up when half a dozen women stepped out onto the back deck, followed by Indigo who was doing his best to appear as if he hadn't been drinking.

"Told you they were hot," he muttered, slurring slightly. He dropped down in the chair next to the one Michael had chosen and leaned in close to him as he pointed at three of the women standing at the opposite end of the deck. "Okay, those three there… those are mine."

Michael's eyebrows rose, he was impressed. "You've already had all three?"

"Not had, Guerin, have." He stressed the words as he turned his head to grin drunkenly at the women. "As in I am currently screwin' all three."

"You're fuckin' all three of 'em?"

He sat up straighter, feeling smug when he heard the impressed tone in Michael's voice. "Oh, yeah. I'm tellin' you, Guerin, the right woman - or women, in my case - will make all the difference. Don't jump to conclusions," he warned when he saw the speculative gleam in his friend's dark eyes. "I'm not gonna marry any of 'em or anything, but hell, it's a wild ride."

"Not interested in anything that requires more than a night, Indigo."

"You don't know what you're missin'." He shook his head but knew he wasn't gonna change the man's mind. He had known Michael for almost eight years now and the man hadn't once formed any kind of attachment to any of the women he'd been with. It was a rare occasion for him to even hook up with the same woman more than once and he didn't think that was ever going to change. There was something about him that made him keep everyone at a distance and he avoided relationships like the plague. "Hey, the blonde in the corner over there," he nodded at the far end of the deck where one of the women had taken up residence, paying no attention to the others as they talked. "She's waitin' for you to make a move." He shook his head in confusion when Michael turned to look at her. _Since when did Guerin wait for an invitation from a woman?_ He knew Michael never drank anything but non-alcoholic beer because he didn't like losing control to anything, so why was it taking so long for him to make a move?

"Come on, Indy," a feminine voice whispered throatily. He turned to look up at the woman leaning over him and he abandoned his friend for a romp with his ladies.

Michael was barely aware of Indigo's disappearance as he stared at the blonde who was staring at him. It wasn't until her gaze lowered to his crotch and she shifted restlessly in her chair that he realized he was hard. _Something was seriously wrong with him._ He shook his head in irritation and decided to ignore whatever it was inside of him that was making him feel like he was being pulled in two different directions.

He leaned the rifle up against the house and stood, making a _follow me_ motion with his head as he stepped back inside the house. As soon as she joined him his arm snaked around her waist and he pulled her up against his body. The moment her body came into contact with his she started to grind herself against his erection and he rolled his eyes as she whimpered and her eyes slid closed.

"Oh, God," she whispered raggedly. "I'm gonna… oh, God…"

_She was gonna be so easy_, he thought to himself. Hell, she was already wet and frantic; the way she was humping him she was gonna come before he even touched her. She stiffened in his arms, making a guttural sound low in her throat before slumping against him limply. _Oh, yeah, she had a hair trigger. He was gonna be able to make her hit her peak multiple times and she was gonna think he was a sex god._

"Ready for Round Two?" he asked when he felt her fingers tugging on his belt.

"Fuck yeah, baby."

He glanced around as he picked her up, nodding in satisfaction when she locked her legs around his waist. He cursed his lack of attention when Indigo had given him a tour of the house but he was ready to blow so he settled for the bathroom. He kicked the door shut behind him and sat her on the counter, leaning back enough to grab a foil packet out of his back pocket, rip it open, shove his jeans down, and roll the condom on. He made it a point to never fuck without a condom because caution was better than a bothersome STD.

He didn't bother to strip her panties from her shapely hips, simply shoved her skirt up, pushed the lacy panties out of the way and entered her in one smooth thrust. It barely took any time at all before she was coming again and he gritted his teeth in frustration when he didn't follow her over that edge.

_Fuck!_ His balls felt like they were gonna explode but it was like something was holding him back. He could feel sweat trickling along his spine, the itchy sensation distracting him momentarily. His entire body felt overly-sensitized and he didn't understand what was happening to him. He could feel the woman's body clamping down on his dick as another orgasm was ripped from her, pulling him from his thoughts and bringing him back to what he was doing. Thankfully his body was familiar with the routine and had continued while his mind had been taking a short self-examination, but despite his need for release it wasn't happening.

He glanced at himself in the mirror behind her and for a fleeting moment he felt as if he were staring at a stranger. His rhythm stuttered when he thought he saw disgust in his own eyes and he looked away, focusing on the woman he was fucking. He pulled out, ignoring her sounds of protest and quickly turned her around so he could enter her from behind. He just wanted to come and get this over with and he couldn't remember ever having to work so hard to get off.

_Tell her to say your name._ Michael rebelled at that thought even as he wondered where it had come from. He didn't like for women to say his name while he was fucking them, he didn't want even that much of a connection with them.

"Oh, God, you're amazing," she moaned as she pushed back against him, meeting him thrust for thrust. "I've never come so many times!"

_Fuck, he'd be happy if he could just come once!_ Michael grunted and kept up the rapid pace, dropping his forehead down to rest against her shoulder as he fought against the voice in his head. _Tell her to say your name_, it repeated insistently. He ignored the words being whispered inside his head, up until the point where he felt his legs start to tremble. "Say my name," he growled.

"What is it?" she hissed when his big hands left her breasts to grip her shoulders.

"Michael." _Please, God, let this do the trick._ He wasn't a religious man by any means, but he was willing to try anything at this point.

"Oh, God, keep it up, Michael."

_Oh, fuck, that was it!_ He could feel it building and his hips slammed into hers once, twice, three more times before he came, leaving him feeling drained instead of sated.

"Indigo said you were wild, but he underestimated your stamina," she purred as they straightened their clothes up. "Think you'll be up for another performance later?"

_Another performance? Was she kidding?_ Michael didn't bother to respond to her, he just shoved her out of the bathroom and locked the door behind her. He turned to lean against it, ignoring the shaking in his body as he tried to make sense of what was happening to him. His abused dick felt like it had been ridden raw and he doubted he was going to be interested in sex for a couple of days.

He stumbled over to the shower and his hand shook as he reached out to turn the faucet on. He felt dirty somehow and he needed to wash that feeling away as quickly as possible.


	8. Chapter 7

**Part 7**

Maria walked along the sidewalk without a single idea as to where she was going. All she knew was that everything she had known that morning had changed, everyone she knew was either dead or they had moved away, and she hadn't been able to find anything indicating that Michael was there at all.

She had found a little more information on her mother, but only enough to tell her that Amy DeLuca had moved away soon after her daughter's funeral. _She was dead in this universe… what was she supposed to do now?_

"You look lost, young lady."

Maria turned to find the owner of the voice and her gaze settled on an elderly woman seated in a rocking chair on the front porch of the large house on the corner. She looked around, realizing that while she knew this town like the back of her hand, she was essentially a stranger in this universe. She moved closer to the porch so the woman wouldn't have to shout to be heard.

"You look familiar," she said, leaning forward and squinting through her thick glasses. "Hmm… you look nearly identical to that Maria girl that used to live around these parts."

_How was she going to explain her presence here? Think quick, Maria!_ "Oh, I um, she was my cousin," she blurted out. "Yeah, the family kinda lost touch with each other and I recently took an interest in genealogy." She shrugged. "That's how I ended up here."

"You're not planning to stay long," she guessed as her shrewd gaze moved over the young woman.

"I wasn't planning to, no," Maria admitted. _What was she going to do?_ she wondered. She had no money, no transportation, no idea what her next move should be. "I came in on the early bus, but I'm afraid it took the last of my money to buy the ticket; someone stole everything I had at the last stop."

"This world today," the old woman huffed, shaking her head. "You just can't trust folks the way you could years ago. Don't you worry about finding a place to stay, honey; I've got plenty of room here and I'd enjoy the company." She stood with the help of her cane and motioned for Maria to join her. "You ever done any waitressing?"

"All the time in high school," Maria answered honestly.

"Well, we'll just give Janine a call and I'm sure she'll be happy to have some decent help for a change."

"I don't really know how long I'll be here… it may only be for a short time."

"Don't fret about that, honey; most of my boarders are only around for a few weeks at a time. Some of them are only here for a few days before they move on. And trust me, Janine will appreciate decent help, even if it's only temporary."

"Are you sure?" Maria asked, hoping she was. This would at least help her stabilize her situation long enough to earn enough money to move on to… wherever.

"I'm sure. My name's Grace, but everyone calls me Ms. Gracie and you're welcome to do the same."

"My name's Maria, just like my cousin."

"Fancy that," Ms. Gracie marveled as she shook her head slowly. "Such a tragic story about your cousin… she was taken so suddenly."

"Yes, I discovered that earlier when I was doing some research at the library. It was very… upsetting; I hadn't expected to get here and find out she had passed away and that my m…" She just barely caught herself in time. "My aunt had moved out of town. My cousin and I used to write to each other and she talked about different people she knew here and I had hoped to meet some of them, but everything I've found so far has been pretty discouraging."

"We'll have to talk about this in more detail later. Right now I have to prepare lunch for my boarders and make a phone call to Janine."

"Can I help you with anything?"

"Oh, no, honey, I'm gonna show you to your room and let you get settled and rest a bit. We'll have plenty of time to talk later."

Maria fell back on the bed when Ms. Gracie left her alone in one of the bedrooms and her hands came up to cover her face as everything she had learned that day suddenly caught up with her.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Indigo stretched as he walked back out onto the back deck, squinting against the setting sun when he noticed Michael standing out in the yard. He glanced around and realized that the three women he had invited out for the other man were no longer there. Two of his ladies had called it a night and the third was asleep in his bed after insisting that he should be a good host and go check on his friend.

He watched Michael for several long minutes as he reached for a beer, pulling it from the cooler in the corner and shaking the ice off. That niggling feeling that something was wrong with the other man came back full force when Michael shifted to stare out into the desert, his expression pensive.

Michael Guerin had never been the type of man to ignore or turn away a hot piece of ass but it was obvious from the lack of females in the immediate vicinity that the man had sent three of the hottest women in the city away.

"Yo, Guerin, what're you doin' out there, man?" He motioned for Michael to join him on the deck as he set about firing the grill up again. He frowned when he saw how carefully the man was walking. "Okay, when're you gonna admit that something's not right with you?" he asked, keeping the question casual.

"What the fuck are you talkin' about, Indigo?" Michael snapped as he gingerly settled into one of the deck chairs. _Fuck! His dick was so sore it didn't matter which way he moved… every bit of contact just made it hurt worse._ He shifted very carefully and bent his legs at the knees as he slouched down, hoping the new position would loosen the crotch of his jeans and take some of the pressure off of his dick.

"I'm talkin' about the fact that you're out here starin' at the fuckin' sand instead of makin' at least one of those three women scream… women that seem to be conspicuously absent, I might add." He paused long enough to go inside and grab the steaks, tossing them on the grill as he turned to look at his friend. "Since when do you send three fine pieces of ass home without drillin' 'em?"

"Hey, I fucked the blonde," Michael interrupted.

"The blonde that had to practically make the first move? Man, that is not normal for you; you do recall that I had to point out that she wanted a piece of you? What'd you do, fuck her just because I brought her to your attention?"

"Back off, Indigo."

The big man leaned back against the railing as he watched the other man. The warning in his voice was clear and his eyes had turned to ice; it was an expression he had seen many times in the field and he knew Michael was reaching the end of his tolerance. He considered the different options at his disposal and he quickly discarded most of them. Michael was displaying an extreme amount of anger, even more than usual, but what concerned him most was the unusual edginess he was observing in the man.

There was really only one way to deal with Guerin when he was like this. He looked down at the claw at the end of his left arm before he reached over with his right hand to remove it and set it on the railing beside him, leaving the stump visible. He felt the fingers of his left hand twitch in anticipation and he shook his head at the odd sensation; even after two years he could still feel movement in a hand that was no longer there.

Michael looked up when Indigo moved to stand next to his chair and he opened his mouth to complain when the man grabbed him by the collar, jerked him to his feet, and punched him. He didn't have time to catch himself because Indigo hit him again and he flew off of the porch to land on the manicured lawn. He rolled out of the way when the man pounced and came close to landing on him.

_The entire world had gone crazy and he was stuck in the middle of the insanity_, Michael thought as he dodged another punch. He rounded on Indigo when the larger man stepped right into the line of fire and he heard the satisfying sound of bone crunching beneath his fist.

"That's cold, Guerin," Indigo muttered as he took a couple of steps back, his right hand futilely trying to stem the flow of blood from his broken nose. "You just had to go an' bust my damn nose; you always go for that shot."

"You know that and you still missed it; you should've blocked it." He shook his head. "It ain't my fault if you're outta shape. You're the one who started it, so quit your bitchin' and let's finish it." He was practically bouncing on the balls of his feet, fists clenching and unclenching at his sides while he waited for the fight to continue. "C'mon, you old, one-handed bastard," Michael taunted.

He wasn't expecting it when Indigo suddenly moved, his right leg making a wide sweeping motion and knocking the younger man flat on his back. "Who you callin' old?" Indigo asked as he dropped down to sit across from Michael. "I can still kick your ass."

"Yeah? I'm not the one bleedin' all over the place." He bent his legs at the knees and shifted to a more comfortable position as he stared up at the sky.

"Y'know, I'm not askin' you to get all warm an' fuzzy here, Guerin; I just wanna know what the fuck's wrong with you."

"Nothin'."

Indigo snorted and immediately winced at the pain that exploded in his nose. "How long have we known each other, man? Somethin' ain't right with you."

"I don't know what it is, okay?"

"You think it's somethin' medical?" He was aware of Michael's aversion to doctors of any kind so he doubted the man would consider seeing one no matter what was wrong with him. "You want me to put a call in to the old man? He's probably got a doctor you could - "

"Fuck no!" The barest hint of a smirk passed over his tense features. "Besides, I already pissed him off once this week." He shook his head.

Indigo pulled his shirt over his head and used it to wipe the blood from his face. "You didn't answer my question, asshole."

"What part of 'fuck no' did you not understand?"

"Do you think it's somethin' medical?"

"Don't know." He brought his hands up to rub his face. _Why had he even volunteered that much information?_ he wondered. He couldn't exactly talk about what was bothering him because he didn't really have a grasp on it himself. It didn't matter if it was medical or not, he couldn't exactly allow anyone to check him out, not unless he wanted to expose his secret and live the rest of his life as a lab rat, confined to a cage.

Indigo stood up after several minutes of silence, knowing that Michael wasn't going to offer any more information. "Alright, I'm gonna go see if I can salvage those steaks, and after that I'm gonna see if I can put my nose back together." He slapped the man's knee as he stood, wishing there was something he could say to put his mind at ease. Whatever was bothering him went too deep for him to share and Indigo knew from personal experience just how badly that could eat away at a man's soul.

Michael didn't bother responding to the other man, his mind preoccupied with his current predicament. He was an alien, alone on a planet that had never really wanted him; if his true identity were ever revealed it would be even worse. _What if he had managed to contract some sort of alien-related illness? What if he was sick and the only cure for whatever was wrong with him was on another planet?_

_Great._ His internal voice had turned sarcastic. He had lived his entire life alone, never forming attachments of any kind, but he had never delved any deeper into his reasoning. The decision to avoid deeper involvement with anyone had been an unconscious one but it was one that had served him well. Now though, he had to wonder if having someone who knew the truth would make a difference. With no way to diagnose what was wrong, no one he could talk to about it, there was a very good chance that he would die the same way he had lived… alone.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Ms. Gracie called out a greeting when her newest boarder stepped into the kitchen where the old woman was cleaning up after dinner. The young woman had been there for a few days and each evening after her shift at the restaurant she came in and insisted on helping with the dishes.

She wondered what the topic would be that night; each evening before turning in for the night they sat out on the porch together and Maria would ask questions about her cousin and her cousin's friends. The young woman was quieter than usual as they cleaned up and it was easy to see that her mind was elsewhere.

As Maria stood on the porch later that night her gaze kept straying to the north. An odd restlessness had settled over her within the past couple of days and she couldn't shake the feeling that it was time to go. She didn't know where she was supposed to go, she just knew that she needed to head north.

"You're not gonna be here much longer," Ms. Gracie mused quietly, observing the young woman's unsettled movements.

"No, it's time for me to move on." Maria sighed as she stared into the night sky. "It seems like everyone my cousin mentioned has moved away or passed away." She paused and swallowed hard as she prepared to ask about the one person she had yet to mention. "Do you know anything about Michael Guerin?"

"Good Lord, honey, why would you want to know anything about that delinquent?" She shook her head. "Michael Guerin… now there's a name I haven't heard in quite a while. I'd be surprised if that one was still alive, and if he is he's probably in some prison somewhere." She made a sound of disapproval. "That boy was trouble from the very beginning. He grew up in the orphanage outside of town; no family, no friends, no stability, and no future to speak of." She cocked her head to one side and studied her young boarder curiously. "What's made you ask about him?"

"Oh, I heard some people talking about him today so I was just wondering if he was still around; he sounded like a very… colorful person," Maria lied. She had asked around about him, but the general consensus was that he was no good and it sounded like no one expected him to do anything with his life. Most of them seemed to be of the same opinion, certain that he was either dead or rotting in prison for some criminal act they were sure he had committed. The other thing they all seemed to have in common was that no one had any idea where he would have gone. "So, my cousin and her friends weren't associated with him at all?"

"No, not at all." She sounded horrified at the prospect that anyone decent would associate with him. "Like I said, that boy was trouble from day one."

"No one tried to help him?" Maria just couldn't wrap her mind around the idea that somewhere in this universe Michael was alone, cast out of society, and had no ties to the people who should have been influential in his life.

"There are some people who don't want help no matter how much it's offered, and he was one of them. When he turned seventeen he took off for parts unknown; I don't think anyone knows where he went when he left here."

Maria leaned against the wide column next to the steps and rubbed her eyes. _How was she going to find Michael when there was no information on him and no one had any idea where he might be now?_ It was taking every bit of strength she had to keep her mind focused on the here and now, to keep it from constantly going over the events that had transpired and led her to this point. She knew if she let herself think about her Michael and what had happened to him she would lose it completely, so she had to keep herself focused on her reason for being there.

"Do you know where you're going next?"

She turned back to face Ms. Gracie when the old woman spoke. "I'm not sure. I'm just kinda following my instincts at this point."

"You'll be leaving soon." It was a statement, not a question.

"Tomorrow afternoon. There's a bus that leaves at noon, heading north." She shook her head as she glanced back at Ms. Gracie. "For now that's the plan; I'll just see where that takes me."

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Michael flopped back on the bed in his hotel room, his eyes locked on the ceiling above him. His fingers drummed out a staccato rhythm on his chest as he ignored the television droning on from across the room. He had been in Santa Fe for five days now; he had passed the restless stage and moved on to edgy a couple of days ago. He should have moved on by now but something was holding him there, the feeling that he was waiting for something to happen. He didn't like that feeling of expectation and he didn't like surprises, but he hadn't been able to do anything to get rid of it.

Under normal circumstances he would've just gone out and gotten laid and buried those feelings, but he still wasn't feeling _right_. The nightmares weren't constant but they were still there, lurking in the corners of his mind, creeping out at the most unexpected times and bringing fear with them. He hadn't bothered to initiate sex with anyone since that day at Indigo's place, not interested in going through another experience like that.

His right hand shifted down to settle protectively over his crotch as he recalled how sore he had been afterwards. He had never in his life had to work so hard to get off or gotten so little enjoyment out of a sexual encounter. He had blocked out those few disturbing seconds when he had felt like he was staring at a stranger as he had glanced at his own reflection, refusing to consider what it might mean.

He was eventually going to have to get past this mental block because he couldn't just stop having sex indefinitely. His dick hadn't bothered to show the slightest bit of interest in anything the last couple of days… not the strippers at the clubs he had gone to with Indigo the past few nights, not the women Indigo had invited out to his house, and not even the woman-on-woman action on the porn channel, and he wasn't sure whether he should be relieved or pissed off. He certainly wasn't eager for a repeat of his last encounter, but at the same time he couldn't just give up fucking either.

Besides, he still had a point to prove to that rich bitch from the parking lot. He raised up to rest his weight on his elbows and stared down his body. "You're gonna have to get over this sooner or later," he muttered. "I'd prefer sooner." He shook his head and fell back on the bed when his dick didn't give the slightest twitch. "Fine, suit yourself."

He needed to pull himself out of this slump, but so far nothing had worked. He didn't know what exactly was causing it but it wasn't getting any better. He didn't think it was getting any worse either, but without an actual diagnosis he didn't know how to go about beginning to fix it. He was literally and figuratively stuck in limbo, and he just wanted whatever was going to happen to hurry up and happen so he could get on with his life.

He glanced at his watch and pushed himself to his feet. He had to meet Indigo in a couple of hours for another long night of drinking, women, and getting laid. _Well_, he thought, irritated, _one of them was getting laid but it wasn't him_.


	9. Chapter 8

**Part 8**

Maria woke with a jolt when the bus pulled into a stop, the large vehicle rocking gently as it made the wide turn. As it slowed and rolled to a stationary position near the doors of the bus station she sat up and stretched. The feeling that she had been having, the push to go north and follow some instinct suddenly felt stronger as she stepped down off of the bus.

Whatever was causing the feeling was here, she was sure of it. She turned to look at the driver when he stepped down off of the bus. "What stop is this?" she asked.

"Santa Fe," he answered as he bent over to open up the storage compartments where the luggage was stored. "We'll be here for an hour while we fuel up and give folks a chance to rest a bit before we get movin' again."

"Thank you." She grabbed the small bag that held her few belongings inside and looked around as she debated which way to go. The station was in a rundown part of the city and a lot of the buildings in the area didn't look like they were currently inhabited. She walked inside to the ticket counter to get directions to the downtown area, figuring that would probably be the best place to start.

She declined the clerk's offer to call a taxi, not wanting to waste what precious little money she had when she could keep it and walk. She lost track of time as she walked along the streets, following the woman's directions into the heart of the city. There was little activity going on around her and she stopped to rest when she reached a small park where benches surrounded a water fountain.

She closed her eyes for a moment, physically weary from her travels and mentally exhausted from the efforts of controlling her thoughts. The vision of Michael's face as he had drawn his last breath surfaced, threatening her sanity and she quickly forced it back down, fearing that if she didn't she would collapse right there, in a public place. She thought about Kyle's ramblings about Buddha… breathing and focusing on something to meditate. _Maybe she should've paid a little more attention to him when he had gone on and on about his enlightenment._

She tried to follow what she could remember of his instructions so she could pull her thoughts together and focus on her mission. _She was there to save Michael, she was there to save Michael, she was there to save Michael…_ she repeated the mantra over and over again, and eventually she began to feel a calm settle over her once more. She could have easily fallen asleep right then and there but the feeling that her reason for being in Santa Fe was close by became insistent and she stood to look around, frantically searching the area. She wondered if it could be some sort of guidance from the Granolith, maybe providing her with an internal map of sorts. Could it be directing her in the direction she needed to go? She didn't know but she had no choice but to follow the pull, to seek out whatever she was supposed to find here.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Michael was slouched down in a chair, long legs stretched out under the table he had been sitting at for the past couple of hours. He was barely paying any attention to the women onstage, his thoughts focused on the newspaper insert lying open on the table in front of him. He circled one of the articles detailing the sales conditions for the motorcycle pictured in the ad and flipped to the next page.

He propped his elbow on the edge of the table and rested his chin in his hand as he scanned over the listings inside. He reached for the bottle of non-alcoholic beer and froze when he realized that his hand was shaking. He slammed the bottle back down on the table and he placed his hand flat on the scarred surface, forcing the tremors to cease. He sat up straight and held his other hand out in front of him, feeling unsettled when he saw that it was trembling too. Fear seized him as he stared at the physical evidence that something was wrong with him. He had almost started to believe that maybe he wasn't sick; he hadn't really had any major episodes since the fiasco with that woman at Indigo's house. The nightmares were still occurring at odd times and the feeling that he was _off_ was still there, but it hadn't been quite as intense as it had been several days before.

Michael's gaze was locked on his hands, unable to look away when the trembling began to get worse and he realized he was losing control of them. He was terrified of the possibilities as he watched the tremors escalate and wild thoughts began to cross his mind. Maybe it wasn't an alien disease as he had first feared; maybe it was a human disease. There were diseases that caused this sort of physical response, right? Brain tumors, nervous system disorders… maybe it was some form of cancer? It could be something he had caught while serving his tours overseas… there were all sorts of things in the jungles, diseases and epidemics released when humans encroached on nature and stuck their noses into things they had no business interfering in. How many times had he and his unit been sent into areas just like that without benefit of protection? He hadn't been sick a day in his life, but there was a first time for everything.

He suddenly felt dizzy and as he shoved himself to his feet the room shifted crazily. He made his way to the back of the bar and pushed his way into the men's room, locking the door behind him and leaning back against it. He kept one hand on the wall as he walked to the sink, doing his best to maintain his balance until he could brace his hands on the white porcelain.

His hands were shaking badly as he turned the faucet on and leaned down to splash cold water on his face. He grabbed a handful of paper towels from the dispenser and dried his face before looking at himself in the mirror above the sink. The feeling that he was staring at a stranger came over him once more and he backed away from the mirror, hands still shaking as he unlocked the door and rushed out. He hurried out of the bar, barreling through the side door and stumbling along the alley that ran next to the building.

He leaned back against the wall and bent over to brace his hands on his knees. His head dropped forward, chin almost touching his chest as he tried to bring his breathing back under control. His heartbeat was erratic, his palms were sweating, and as the dizzy feeling swept over him once more he feared that he was going to lose his lunch.

He had spent countless months in Africa where the risk of death by diseases he couldn't pronounce, a kill shot by a sniper or a soldier fighting for the opposing military, and death at the hands of rebel forces were all very good possibilities. _Had he really managed to survive all of that so he could come home and die of some alien/human-related illness?_

He was a soldier, a fighter, and he had long ago accepted that he would probably die a violent death, either in a fight or on a battlefield. Dying from some sort of alien sickness or cancer, or something equally as horrible would just be too unfair. That was no way for a soldier to die; he deserved to go out fighting.

"Michael!"

He pushed away from the wall, barely registering the sound of a woman's voice calling his name.

"Oh my God, Michael! It's you!"

He was in the process of lifting his head when a blurry figure suddenly barreled into him and in his uncoordinated state the woman's slight weight easily took him to the ground. He was trying to get his bearings when she started kissing him and crying, rambling incoherently about him being dead and then not being dead.

He let it continue for several minutes and in a completely uncharacteristic display of human behavior his arms slipped around her and he accepted comfort from the physical contact. As a rule he avoided contact unless it was sexual and he blamed the lapse on his most recent reminder that something was wrong with him.

He suddenly realized that the tremors had stopped and he was no longer feeling dizzy, and he surged to his feet, dragging the woman up with him. He held her at arms length and his dark gaze swept over her, swiftly cataloging her assets.

She was blond, cute, and a bit on the short side, but she was curved in all the right places and he'd be willing to bet that her sassy mouth could be put to some very interesting uses. His eyes suddenly narrowed and he reined his thoughts in as he remembered that she had called him by name. He rarely had any recollection of the women he screwed but he was pretty sure that if he'd fucked her he'd remember it. His gaze strayed back to her full lips and when the tip of her tongue slipped out to moisten them his dick twitched in interest. _Oh, yeah, he'd remember her_, he thought.

Maria watched him as she tried to bring herself under control. Logically she knew that he wasn't her Michael, that it wasn't possible, but emotionally it was more difficult. He was Michael, but at the same time he wasn't, and it was proving to be very hard to make her heart understand the difference when she was still trying to grasp it herself. She drank in the sight of him, unable to tear her gaze away from him as she searched his features for similarities with her Michael. His hair was short, not military short, but it wasn't as long as Michael's had been the past few years. He wore cargo pants and a tee shirt under a leather jacket. Her Michael had preferred jeans and shirts most of the time. This man had a small scar under his left eye and she wondered how he had gotten it, who had hurt him, and when it had happened. At the thought of him being hurt her mind automatically went back to Hank and how her Michael had spent years with the abusive monster. She was doing her best to control her emotions, to stop any further tears from tracking down her face, but she was having a hard time stopping them.

Michael shook her hands off of him, wondering when she had wrapped her small hands around his wrists and how he hadn't noticed, and he backed away from her. There was something mesmerizing about her and he couldn't let anyone have that kind of control over him. She was going to be trouble, he could feel it, and he had to get away from her.

Maria frowned when he took several steps back before turning away to leave her alone in the alley. "Don't you dare walk away from me, Michael Guerin…" When he didn't stop she knew she was going to have to get his attention, say or do something that would make him come back. She had to strike hard and fast because it was easy to see that this man had very little patience or tolerance unless it suited him. She tapped her right foot in irritation when he continued to walk away, wondering if dropping the Czechoslovakian bomb was a good idea. But, since he apparently had no intention of changing his mind about listening to her she decided to throw caution to the wind and just go for it. "Must be difficult being an alien refugee from Roswell, New Mexico."

He froze and turned to look at her, immediately pissed off by her know-it-all tone and her confidant stance.

_All right, this was working_, she thought. Relieved with her little success, Maria wondered if mentioning something specific to Antar would trigger a reaction… just so she could assert what this Michael really knew about his past. "Oh, I know everything there is to know about you, Michael. Or should I call you Rath?"

Michael visibly bristled when she called him Rath; merely hearing the name pass her lips made him crazy and he didn't know why. He stalked back to her and grabbed her arm, his fingers gripping her hard enough to leave bruises as he dragged her to a deserted backstreet. Reaching his destination he shoved her up against a dingy brick wall and pinned her there with his forearm pressing into her windpipe, cutting off her ability to breathe. He leaned in closer to her, his expression menacing as he snarled threateningly into her face, intending to scare the hell out of her. A wave of dizziness washed over him and he was forced to back away from her so he could lean over and catch his breath.

He cursed his bad luck and wondered who or what he had pissed off to deserve this shit. Having one of these episodes in a back alley, in front of this girl who already knew more than she should about him, had the potential of being detrimental to his existence; the knowledge she possessed was dangerous and she could destroy the life he had built. Hell, she could probably kill him right now and he wouldn't be able to defend himself in his weakened state. Killed by a human girl! Michael snorted. _Talk about karma_, he thought, shaking his head. After years of using women for sex, his use-once-and-throw-away policy in regards to them was going to come back and bite him on the ass. Just the thought that he could be killed by a human girl seemed like some ironic form of divine justice.

After a few minutes he straightened up once more and leveled his angry gaze at her. She was supposed to be afraid and try to run away from him, not still be standing there watching him and waiting to see what he would do next.

"This isn't something we should talk about in public," Maria said, conscious of the lack of privacy and the possibility that they could be overheard.

"We talk here and you tell me what I wanna know or I'll kill you!" he snarled. The words felt wrong even as he spoke them but he ignored the feeling.

Maria watched him, her green eyes scanning over his intimidating features as she shook her head. "You'd never be able to kill me, never. Just try."

"Don't tempt me, bitch." Michael slammed his hands against the wall on either side of her head, satisfied when the unexpected action caused her to jump. His hands closed into fists as he leaned back, certain that the only reason he hadn't gotten physical with her and forced her to talk was because he didn't need to draw any unwanted attention to them. He glanced around as he checked his pockets, making sure he had his keys with him. He wasn't about to admit that she was right, but he needed a secluded place for this conversation to happen.

She hissed in pain when his hand clamped down over her arm once more, his steely grip settling over the same place he had already managed to bruise. When he didn't so much as pause at the sound she made, she had to remind herself that despite the similarities he wasn't her Michael. She was counting on her instincts to prove her right, certain that even though he was different, he had that same core of integrity and strength that her Michael had always had.

He manhandled her along the backstreet, back through the alley, and out onto the main street in front of a seedy-looking bar. He released his hold on her when they reached a motorcycle and he motioned at it as he swung his right leg over the seat and settled into the leather saddle. "Get on," he ordered as he slid a pair of mirrored sunglasses on. "And don't bother runnin'."

Maria rolled her eyes at his authoritative tone. "Just so you know, if this weren't a matter of such crucial importance, I'd run just to make you chase after me."

"Go ahead, but if I have to chase after you I'm gonna be fuckin' pissed off and I'm not gonna be pleasant when I catch you."

"You haven't been pleasant yet," she muttered as she climbed on the bike behind him. "But, far be it from me to be the one to piss you off." She welcomed his arrogant attitude and his rude disposition because it gave her a place to focus her attention and it kept her from losing control of her emotions.

The motorcycle roared to life, drowning out her thoughts and her arms slid around his waist to avoid being thrown into the street when he pulled away from the curb. Her hands slid under his jacket unintentionally and she couldn't help but notice that his body was very toned… more than her Michael. That thought had her shaking her head. _Good Lord, she was going to be certifiable soon, with the constant yo-yo her mind was mimicking as it kept pushing her thoughts back and forth between her Michael and this Michael._ But she couldn't help it; he wasn't her Michael. She didn't know why the Granolith had sent her to this place… there had to be a reason, but she had no idea what it was. Why hadn't it just sent her back in time? Why send her to a completely different universe where the version of Michael she had encountered was an ass? She had no idea where he was taking her and even though the differences between this version of Michael and hers were so obvious, she wasn't afraid of him or concerned for her safety.

This man was raw, unrefined, cold, and emotionless, and she wondered if her Michael would have turned out the same without the influence of her and their friends. When he finally stopped the motorcycle and the dust settled she looked around and realized that he had taken them out of Santa Fe. What surprised her was the location he had chosen to extract information from her. The church was old; small, but well-kept, and surrounded in all directions by miles and miles of lonely desert. She looked up at the two large juniper trees that stood on either side of the entrance to the adobe mission. Greenery in the middle of the desert seemed to defy explanation, but it was absolutely breathtaking. Two bell towers rose up on either side of the old building, the bells still intact and their ropes swaying gently in the soft breeze. Small white crosses stood at the tops of the bell towers and a larger one stood in the middle of the manicured path that led up to the white double doors. A statue of some saint, carved from white stone, stood in the middle of the yard, hands outstretched as if welcoming passersby inside.

She was leaning over to look at some tiny flowers growing along the front wall of the mission when she was roughly pulled off of the motorcycle and practically dragged up to the mission's entrance. For just a brief moment she had allowed the serenity of the setting to lull her thoughts away from the task at hand and she had forgotten her surly companion.

"Hurry the fuck up," he snapped.

His irritated tone and boorish behavior quickly reminded her of her reason for being there and she jerked her arm out of his painful grasp. "It is completely unnecessary for you to drag me around like - "

Michael jerked the door on the left side open as he leaned forward and grabbed her once more, shoving her inside ahead of him. She rounded on him and her right hand came up to slap him but he caught her wrist in an iron grip, pinning it between them as he pulled her up against his body. "Get your ass inside before your big mouth catches someone's attention."

"We're in the middle of the damn desert!" she yelled. "There's no one around to hear anything!"

"Yeah, maybe you should've thought about that before you came out here with me… you don't know me. I could do any damn thing I wanted to you and you couldn't stop me." He nodded, pleased when she fell silent. "No comeback this time?"

"Go ahead, Michael, hurt me," she taunted, growing tired of his threats. She moved back as far away as his grasp would allow and sparks flew from her angry green eyes. "Stop making idle threats, you bastard! If you think you can hurt me then go ahead, you have my permission."

Michael released her and shoved her away, pissed beyond belief that she had enough backbone to challenge him. "I don't need your fuckin' permission!" he yelled, slamming his fists down against the back of a pew. _Fuck, that hurt!_

"We're in a church," she hissed. "Watch your mouth!"

_Watch his mouth?_ Michael repeated silently. "What're you, my mother?"

Maria laughed, her tone filled with irony. "Your _mother_? Oh, no, trust me, that definition is so far removed from the truth that it's not even funny."

He shook his head, trying to connect the dots and figure out how exactly they had gone from him threatening her to this suddenly confusing conversation. Somehow he had completely lost control of the situation and he had to get it back before she was allowed to confuse him any further.

"Look, I'm not interested in this… this… whatever this bullshit is! Just tell me what you've got to say so - "

"You're so impatient." She looked around the interior of the mission, taking in the warm, comforting feelings that it produced. It was easy to see that everything inside had been carved by hand and it had been well cared for over the century that it had been standing. She drew in a deep breath, once again letting the serenity of the place wash over her as she collected her thoughts.

While she was busy calming herself Michael was in the process of experiencing a major meltdown. His hands curled over the back of the pew in front of him, his knuckles white from the strain. The sound of wood splintering drew his attention and he looked down, frowning when he realized that he was unintentionally damaging it. _He was gonna do more than that if she didn't start talking soon._ As if she had read his mind she suddenly turned to look at him, her expression oddly calm as she began to tell a story that he wasn't expecting.


	10. Chapter 9

**Part 9**

"Once upon a time there was a planet called Antar and it was ruled by a king named Zan. Every king must have his queen and King Zan was no different; his queen's name was Ava. Rath was the king's second-in-command, his right hand, and he was engaged to the king's sister, Princess Vilandra. These four individuals were called the Royal Four." She snorted derisively as she paced, muttering the next words almost to herself. "Here on Earth it was to be revealed as an evil thing called Destiny."

Michael's eyebrows shot up in surprise when he heard the anger in her voice. He was beginning to suspect that he had a delusional lunatic on his hands and the anger in her voice as she spoke of a mythical place and extraterrestrial royalty only seemed to confirm his suspicions.

"Anyway," she said, collecting herself, "Antar had an enemy… a powerful and devious enemy named Khivar. It was decided that they should enter into peace talks with Khivar, but unknown to the king and his second-in-command, the princess had met Khivar and fallen in love with him. Their love story was the stuff legends are made of; she betrayed her brother, her fiancé, her entire planet… all for him, and it ended in a bloodbath."

_Uh-huh, just as he suspected - she was certifiable._ Michael rolled his eyes and wondered how she had gotten her science fiction and romance novels mixed up.

Maria went on with her tale, caught up in the retelling and oblivious to his disbelieving expression. "The Royal Four were killed and Antar fell into Khivar's hands, but thanks to the Queen Mother, or maybe the scientists, the essence… the souls, of the Royal Four, were somehow captured and injected into human-Antarian clones. My personal opinion is that it's more likely that there was some powerful, pain-in-the-ass alien that thought it was some sort of god or something - and was probably worshipped as such - that was quite possibly responsible for creating them." She shook her head and glanced at him. "Okay, that's personal conjecture because we never had any proof of that."

"We?" Michael widened his stance and crossed his arms over his chest. _What she was saying was definitely interesting, but was there any possibility that there was some truth to it?_ "That would be you and who? The voices in your head?"

She frowned at him, easily hearing the mocking tone in his voice. "You didn't just appear on this planet, dumbass, and you can deny it all you want, but you're not completely human."

"No, I'm…" He tapped his chin thoughtfully with the forefinger of his right hand. "Who am I in this little fantasy world you've created? I'm the king and you're the queen?"

"What? No, you were Rath, the second-in-command, and I'm completely human, from right here on good old planet Earth." She could see that she had his attention once more, recognizing the look of intense concentration on his face as he debated the validity of her story. "Look, once the Royal Four had been cloned they were in danger so a plan was put into place to protect them until the time came for them to return to Antar. They were sent to a planet far away, accompanied by teachers and bodyguards, as well as the Granolith, a very mysterious object. But something happened on that fateful trip, something terrible, and their ship crash-landed here on Earth… the big crash in July 1947, in Roswell, New Mexico? You must've heard of it - you're not stupid or a fool, so I know you must've considered it."

"You're fuckin' insane," Michael muttered, starting to pace agitatedly. "You show up outta nowhere and start spoutin' a bunch of bullshit about me bein' a clone and havin' a past life and you expect me to believe it." _She had obviously escaped from a mental institution or a psychiatric hospital somewhere, because there was no way this was possible._

"Look, the Royal Four were placed in some sort of incubation pods on the ship and after it crash-landed the survivors hid the pods in a cave along with the Granolith. We assume the survivors were captured because they never returned to the chamber and the pods remained there for years until they were ready to hatch."

Michael jumped on that. "Wait, there are others like me? Where are they?" _Could they heal him and get rid of whatever illness he had come down with?_ He grabbed her roughly, his big hands wrapping around her upper arms and hauling her close to him. "Tell me where they are," he demanded.

Her expression quickly changed from surprised to sad and she wished she didn't have to be the one to tell him about the others. "They're all dead, Michael. Max and Isabel - the human names given to King Zan and Princess Vilandra - died in a car accident with their adoptive parents when they were nine years old. Tess - the human name given to Queen Ava - died in her pod… she never hatched." _Not that she regretted that one._

"How do you know all that?" He shook her hard enough to rattle her teeth. "What's your role in all this?"

Maria sighed and took a deep breath before starting the next part of the story much as she had started the first part. "Once upon a time a young girl named Liz was shot in her father's restaurant called the Crashdown and she was healed by a young alien named Max Evans - "

"Wait! I thought you said he was dead?" Michael asked, confused. He remembered that shooting; the girl at the diner hadn't survived her wounds.

"Just listen for a few minutes, will you?" she asked impatiently. "From that moment on, their lives were in utter chaos; the F.B.I. maintains a Special Unit that hunts aliens and they captured Max and tortured him, Max - a future version of him - used the Granolith and came back because Earth, in his timeline, had fallen into Khivar's hands and he came back to prevent it from happening. Tess became the traitor and she killed a human named Alex by mind warping him to death so she could go back to Antar with Max's child, the heir to the throne. Her actions set things into motion and we were forced to go into hiding, to run from the U.S. Army and the F.B.I. Special Unit."

Michael shook his head, not understanding what she was telling him. _First these people, or aliens, whatever, were dead and in her next breath she was telling him they were alive. Which was it?_

"The Granolith, the object that was sent with the Royal Four, is capable of time travel, but it is also capable of travel through dimensions. The story I just told you, where we were on the run, is from another dimension." She stepped back out of his grasp that had loosened, looking him straight in the eye. "What I didn't tell you is that I came from that parallel universe and I was Michael's girlfriend. We've been together for the past five years…" She swallowed hard and reworded her statement. "We were together for the past five years, we were in love, and when he had no choice but to leave Roswell and everything he knew behind because he and the others were being hunted, I ran with him. We went through everything together… I was there when he got sick," she said, lost in the memories and missing the look of surprise that crossed his features. "I was there the first time he was forced to kill a man and he was so lost - "

"Weakling," Michael muttered under his breath. He wasn't expecting it when her open palm cracked against the side of his face and within the space of a heartbeat he had pinned her to the wall, his right hand curled around her throat. "Don't you ever do that again."

"Don't call him weak," she screamed, but the words came out on a gasping breath. "You have no idea what he went through." She reached up to rub her throat where his fingers had been pressing against her windpipe, choking her.

Michael took two steps back, staring at his hand as if it belonged to someone else.

"I was with him when he needed to escape from his abusive foster father… and I was with him when he took his last breath."

He took several more steps back, leaning against the nearest pew as he studied her. He was stunned by all of her revelations… clones, a planet called Antar, the Royal Four, the Granolith, time travel, other dimensions, a double and his girlfriend. He felt like he was in some sort of alternate reality or something and he was trapped there with some crazy girl who claimed to be from a parallel universe. _There was no way this shit was for real; she was obviously off her medications… or, she had seen him use his powers and she had created this completely fictional world in her mind and she was starting to believe it._

Maria's eyes widened in shock when he stood up and silently walked out of the mission; the heavy door swung shut behind him as he stalked down the path to his motorcycle. She shoved the door open and ran after him, wondering why he hadn't said anything. That wasn't the reaction she had been expecting and she had to get to him before he had the chance to leave her there. "Michael, where're you going?" She grabbed his right arm with both hands, hanging on when he tried to shake her off. "You can't - "

Michael stopped mid-stride and turned back to look at her, dark eyes blazing as he glared at her. "I don't have time for chicks suffering from mental instabilities!" he shouted. "You're obviously deranged and you belong in an asylum somewhere." He shoved her away from him. "Get the fuck away from me!" He turned and started back towards the motorcycle. "I'm goin' home, havin' a cold drink, watchin' somethin' totally mind-numbing on TV, and you're gonna get lost."

Maria watched him, shocked. _He wouldn't just walk away from her like that!_ She chased after him again when she realized that he was going to just leave her there, maneuvering so that she was in front of him, blocking his path. Before he had time to protest, she jumped up against him, wrapping her arms around his wide shoulders and kissing him. She forced her mind completely open, hoping that the flashes worked the same way in his universe as they worked in hers.

Michael was surprised by her actions and he didn't have time to put his mental walls up. Something in him forced him to let go, to let a connection that he didn't understand establish itself, and he allowed his arms to come around her so he could hold her against his body.

Confusing images, scenes that he couldn't recall, flashes of memory that weren't his, began to hit him hard and fast and he felt his heart rate triple. He could see himself, only it wasn't him… sleeping with this crazy girl… working together at the Crashdown - a place he had never set foot in, much less worked there… fighting in a car and her accusing him of kidnapping her… them arguing in a hotel room that really did look like a 'porno version of Aladdin'… her holding him while he cried… watching her sing in a bar or maybe it was a nightclub… him handing her some kind of project, a napkin holder… him clumsily learning how to dance and showing up at the prom just to make her smile… them making love…

Feelings and emotions that were unwanted and didn't belong to him assaulted him and he broke the kiss and shoved her away, wiping his mouth with the back of his hand. He felt disoriented, his mind filled with thoughts, images, and memories that weren't his and he wanted her to take them back.

"Michael?" Maria watched him carefully, realizing too late that he hadn't experienced the flashes before today. She hadn't expected that and it was too late to take it back, but she wouldn't even if she could. He had to accept the truth before she could enlist his help for whatever purpose the Granolith had in mind when it had chosen to send her to a place where she would cross paths with this version of Michael.

He had to leave and he had to get away from her. She wasn't good for his sanity and she knew things that she shouldn't know about him. He needed to find peace and he needed to be alone before he would be able to do that.

"You can't just leave me here," Maria insisted when he moved around her, avoiding touching her. "This isn't my world and you're the only one I know here."

Michael threw his right leg over the seat and settled down as his thoughts ran rampantly through his mind. It didn't really matter whether what she said was true or not, if she started running her big mouth to others about him it could cause him a lot of trouble. _He wasn't worried about her_, he insisted silently. He just didn't want her giving away any information that could threaten his existence.

"Get on," he barked angrily. He gritted his teeth and his entire body tensed when she slid on behind him and wrapped her arms around his waist.

An hour later he pulled up in front of Indigo's house, parking the motorcycle and dismounting before grabbing her arm and dragging her up the driveway behind him. The door opened as his booted feet stepped up on the porch and he felt relief wash over him when he saw the big man standing there.

"Indigo, buddy, I need a favor."

Indigo's gaze swept over the short blond trying to get free of the man's grasp. "What's up, Guerin?"

"I need a safe place to leave this wildcat for a while." He hauled her up onto the porch and shoved her towards the other man. "I'll be back for her later." He jogged back down the steps and practically ran to the motorcycle without another word.

The big man standing in the doorway held his right hand out, head cocked to one side as he waited to see if the young woman would take it. "Indigo Jeffries," he introduced himself when her much smaller hand slid into his.

"Maria DeLuca," she said, following him inside when he motioned towards the entrance.

"Guerin doesn't usually drop one of his jobs off at my door and I don't recall seein' him ever look as rattled as he did just now."

"One of his jobs?"

Now he was really confused. "You're not under his protection?"

"Under his protection?" Maria shook her head, wondering how she was going to be able to get information about Michael out of this man.

"Did I just hear Michael?"

Maria's head snapped around when she heard a perky feminine voice speak up from behind Indigo. She hadn't considered that Michael might be involved with someone else in this universe.

Indigo turned to look at Cindy; the woman that had shown up earlier that afternoon with his ladies, hoping for another round of sex with Michael. He felt Maria tense up when she got a good look at the big-chested, blue-eyed, platinum-blond woman that obviously didn't know when to shut up.

"Did you come to get a piece of Michael too?" she asked, directing the question to Maria. "His dick must be legendary; I'm telling you, that man knows how to fuck." She continued to rave to the woman next to her, oblivious to the angry, red flush that was creeping up into her face. "He's got stamina you wouldn't believe; I lost count of how many orgasms I had."

Maria stood frozen, horrified when Cindy started going into great detail and she realized that the only option was to shut her up. _That was the last straw_, she thought as the woman continued to ramble on about how great sex with Michael was.

Indigo wasn't expecting it when the little blond launched herself at Cindy, getting a handful of the woman's off-the-shoulder blouse and turning it into a piece of shredded material before he could grab her. The two women landed on the floor and he just barely intercepted Maria's fist before it connected with the loud-mouthed blonde's nose. It took a considerable effort to pull Maria away from Cindy before she could do serious damage. "Okay, why don't we take this to the gym," he suggested, nodding at one of his ladies when she heard the commotion and came running inside. He was struggling to hold onto the irate woman as he backed out of the room, shouting instructions to be heard over her screaming.

He didn't release her until they were inside the gym and he turned to set the electronic locks he had installed so she couldn't get out until he was sure his orders had been followed and the women had cleared out. For the moment she was surprisingly silent, but he quickly realized she was studying the keypad next to the door, eyes narrowed as she tried to decipher the complex symbols on the keys. While she was otherwise occupied he crossed the room and grabbed a pair of boxing gloves, holding them out to her when he joined her once more. "Put these on."

"What?"

"You've got some serious anger issues, and I think we can avoid any further violence if you just focus it right there." He turned to point at the heavy bag suspended from four short chains that were attached to a hook anchored in one of the exposed ceiling beams in the center of the room.

"I do not have anger issues," she spat angrily as she rounded on him.

"Hey, one-handed man here," he joked, holding his arms up in surrender. "Obviously you an' Guerin have history, otherwise I can't imagine that you would've gone on the attack like that." He reached out to help her tie the laces up on the gloves and walked her over to the heavy bag, moving to one side to hold it still while she took a swing at it.

Picturing the perky blonde's face while punching the heavy bag was actually very cathartic, and Maria quickly fell into a rhythm. She forgot about the man Michael had dumped her on in favor of letting her thoughts loose and hitting the bag as hard as she could. This Michael was obviously different from hers, he wasn't her Michael, but despite that she didn't want him to be with another woman. It wasn't acceptable in any way, shape, or form; any woman was a threat and would be perceived as a rival.

Indigo grunted when she hit the bag particularly hard and he took a step back to maintain his balance. He was intrigued by this small woman and he wondered what Michael's relationship with her was, because it was obvious that she wasn't one of his jobs. Not to mention her earlier confusion when he had asked her about that very thing had pretty much confirmed that.

"So, why don't you tell me about yourself," Indigo said when she finally started to wind down. Maybe he could get some information about his mysterious friend from her. "Or we could talk about Guerin."

"Michael and I…" She smiled and shook her head when she noticed how intent his expression was. "Our pasts are connected; it's kinda complicated."

"It must've been quite a while since you've seen each other," he said, hoping to get something out of her. "He didn't seem too happy about you showin' up." He winced. "Sorry, that was kinda blunt."

Maria smiled up at the big man as she held her right hand out for him to untie the glove. "It was blunt, but, considering I came into your home and basically started a fight I guess it's okay. And to answer your question, no, he's not too happy to see me."

"So, what, you guys were together at some point, the relationship went south, and you had a bad breakup or somethin'?"

"Or something. I guess he still doesn't like to talk about his past?"

Indigo snapped his fingers and nodded. "The orphanage, right? That's how you guys know each other, it has to be! Relationship," he snorted. "I shoulda known better than to suggest that; Guerin doesn't do long-term. Hell, I don't think one-night stands even qualify as short-term, so you couldn't have been in a relationship. It's the orphanage, right?" He shook his head when she just smiled, confident that he had solved the puzzle of her relationship with Michael. "You hungry?"

The question was completely out of left field. "What?"

"Hungry, y'know, I fix food and we eat?"

"Oh, well, you have company, and I know Michael dumping me off on your doorstep was completely unexpected so I certainly don't want you to - "

"Wow, you talk a lot." He grinned, a wide and toothy grin. "Boy, that's gotta drive Guerin right up the wall! Don't worry about my company; I told one of my ladies I needed the place emptied out while you were busy screamin' at Cindy." He unlocked the door and motioned for her to follow him. "Hey, you like Italian food?"

"I love Italian food," Maria said, laughing when her stomach rumbled in anticipation of eating. She hadn't realized how long it had been since her last meal and she was very hungry. "You cook?"

"Uh-huh. Served a couple of tours in Italy a few years back and I learned how to cook from a woman I was involved with while I was there. Their food's amazing, isn't it?"

"Um-hmm." She looked around the huge kitchen, sitting on one of the high-backed barstools at the large island at the center of the room when he shooed her in that direction on his way to the stainless steel refrigerator. "So, if you served a couple of tours in Italy then you must be military?"

Indigo chuckled. "Close enough. The Company recruits young people with troubled pasts and gives them an opportunity to work off their debt to society and/or turn their lives in the right direction before they've gone too far and end up in prison." He pulled several covered dishes out and placed them on the counter and moved to a cabinet to retrieve a couple of baking dishes. He turned the oven on when he passed it on his way back to the island.

"I don't suppose you can tell me how Michael was recruited?"

"It's been a long time since you've seen him, huh?" He chuckled as he moved the food from the containers he had taken from the refrigerator to the baking dish and slid it into the oven. "Unlike most of us, Guerin hadn't committed any hard crimes when he was recruited; he was involved in a lot of minor shit, but he had the type of attitude and personality the Company is always lookin' for. I had already been in for several years when he was recruited," he said as he went back to the refrigerator and searched for the ingredients for a Caesar salad. "Kid was seventeen, arrogant, pissed off about anything and everything, and a total loner, but he adapted to the Company right from the start."

"Seventeen?" Maria was horrified by that information; there was no such group in her universe. _How had Michael gotten involved with a military group?_ "How long was he in the Company?"

"Right at seven years, I think." He glanced down at his left hand and mentally calculated the months. "Yeah, that's about right; he served another year after I lost the hand and then he went to work for a private company."

Somehow, Maria felt a great sense of relief when she learned that Michael was no longer employed by the Company. "So, he's like, a bodyguard?"

"Yeah. There's the occasional job for the Company that crops up since the guy he contracts out to still has connections with the old man who runs things."

Maria ran the numbers in her head, surprised to realize that this Michael was twenty-five years old. He must have hatched earlier than in her universe. "Did you serve together in Italy?"

"Huh-uh. Most of our tours were in Africa, but there were a few odd ones in other countries. We spent time in Kuwait, Cuba, and El Salvador." He held his left arm up, nodding at the claw. "Lost the hand in an explosion in Cuba and that pretty much ended my time with the company; an explosives expert who's missin' a hand doesn't inspire a lot of confidence, y'know?"

"Were you disarming a bomb?"

"Yep." He grabbed a hand towel and pulled the hot dish out of the oven, sliding it on the stove. He grabbed the second dish and checked the time as he placed it on the rack in the center of the oven. "It was too late to disarm the fuckin' thing, but I was sure I could do it. Called that one wrong."

This whole discussion was making Maria ill-at-ease. She had always known that Michael was the soldier in the group, but in her universe he had been able to separate that part of himself, only letting it out when it was needed. Here, in this universe, this Michael had totally embraced that darker side of his nature, entering into a career that had only strengthened those instincts with no hesitation. It was becoming painfully clear that here he was probably closer to the original Rath than he was to her Michael. "Is that what Michael did?"

"What? Explosives expert?"

"Yeah."

"No, Guerin is a highly-trained weapons expert; bastard can take a target out at a thousand yards."

Maria was appalled at the picture this man was painting of Michael. "He was a sniper?"

"Still is, if and when the job calls for it." He moved to the cabinets next to the refrigerator and pulled down a couple of dinner plates and carried them to the stove. Placing them on the counter he filled them with the food he had heated then pulled the baking dish from the oven and added garlic bread to the plates. "Hope you like chicken parmesan," he said as he placed the plates on the island and pulled one of the stools out to join Maria. "It's all homemade; made it last night, but I was flyin' solo, so there were plenty of leftovers." He leaned forward to tap a clear glass bottle that he had gotten from the refrigerator. "Salad dressin', also homemade," he bragged unabashedly.


	11. Chapter 10

**Part 10**

Michael was parked at the edge of an overlook, sitting sideways on the motorcycle seat, long legs stretched out in front of him and crossed at the ankles. He crossed his arms over his chest as he stared into the canyon, dark eyes trained on some point in the distance and completely unaware of the panoramic beauty stretched out in front of him.

He didn't know what was going on or how to handle this situation. _What was he supposed to do with this girl?_ he wondered. _Okay, she was probably a woman… she was nineteen, maybe twenty years old, so technically she wasn't a girl any longer._ He shook his head, trying to derail this line of thinking. _All of her insane ranting and babbling was affecting his ability to think and it had to stop._ He didn't care whether she was a girl or a woman, he just needed to figure out what he was gonna do with her.

She knew too much for him to simply let her go. "Which isn't a problem apparently, since she doesn't _want_ to go," he muttered. This was not the way he was supposed to be spending his time off. He was supposed to be hanging out, getting laid, and enjoying the lack of complication in his life. But, no, that was not the way the way his vacation was being spent; instead of relaxation he was experiencing the onset of some illness that he had yet to determine whether it was human or alien in nature, his dick had gone on strike, and he had been besieged by some escapee from the psychiatric ward.

He stood and walked to the guardrail that had been built between the side of the road and the drop-off and kicked several rocks over the edge. _What was he gonna do with her?_ _If he let her go she might run her mouth to the wrong people._ He scratched his chin thoughtfully. _Crazy people were nothing new; what were the chances that anyone would believe the story she had told him?_ He couldn't leave her with Indigo indefinitely, but maybe he could leave her with him while he tried to figure what to do with her. _No, that wasn't gonna work either; Indigo had a big mouth and he liked to talk as much as…_ He frowned. _What the fuck was her name anyway?_ She had never given him her name. He shook his head. _Not the point_, he reminded himself. Maybe he could just drop her off at the nearest hospital and tell them he had found her walking in the desert, rambling about aliens and other nonsense. Something inside of him rebelled at the thought of leaving her anywhere that wasn't with him and he screamed in frustration, hating the feeling inside of him that seemed determined to hound him into doing things he didn't want to do.

"Fuck!" The single word echoed off of the walls of the canyon and he scrubbed his hands through his hair as he tried once more to focus on the problem.

He was going to have to take her home so he could figure out what to do with her. At least there she would be isolated, she wouldn't be able to give out any information about him, and if things went just right she'd quickly decide that the little fantasy she had created in her head had nothing to do with him. He had no idea why she had fixated on him, but if he could focus her insanity on someone or something else he could get rid of her without risk of exposure. Besides, she already thought he was an asshole; how hard could it be to turn her fixation onto someone else?

Especially if all of this was just because she had recently lost a lover who happened to look like him… His eyes gleamed as he suddenly realized that he had quite possibly hit the nail on the head.

"Of course!" he shouted. _That had to be it! The guy she had described was nothing like him; they just happened to have the same name or something. That could happen… he probably wasn't the only guy out of several billion people on the planet to have this name. Besides, everyone supposedly had a twin somewhere on the planet, right?_

Somewhere deep inside of him he knew he was fooling himself and that he was trying to come up with a plausible scenario that would allow him to ignore the thoughts she had put into his head. He didn't want to think about his origins or his past, he wanted those things to stay in the little box in his mind where he kept them because he knew there were no real answers available.

Now, out of nowhere, she - whoever the hell she was - had entered his life with this fantastic story of past lives, royalty, war, and betrayal… and part of him wanted to know more. Part of him wanted it to be true, to know that his existence on this rock meant more than it did now. But, on the other hand, what did it really matter if it was true? She had already said that the other three royals were dead in this universe… He shook his head, shoving the thoughts away. He was not going to get lost in this mind-boggling science fiction/romance story that she had put together in her convoluted mind.

He needed to get back to Indigo's house so he could collect the little package of insanity that was suddenly part of his life before she unloaded her story on the man and opened an entirely new can of worms. _He would have to sort through his thoughts later and decide which road he wanted to take,_ he thought as he walked back over to the motorcycle.

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Michael frowned when he stepped up on the porch and heard Indigo's raucous laughter coming from the back of the house. Instead of knocking on the front door, he walked along the wraparound porch, pressing his back up against the side of the house when he got close to the back deck.

"I lost my hand, not my hearing, Guerin," Indigo called, busting his stealthy creeping.

His hands clenched into fists and he scowled when he heard the woman's amused laughter at his expense. "What the fuck are you laughin' at?" he snarled as he came around the corner and stood directly in front of her. She was curled up in one of the padded deck chairs, her placid green gaze leveled on his angry face.

"You," she answered without missing a beat.

Michael motioned for Indigo to join him at the other end of the deck, uncomfortably aware of her gaze following him.

Maria watched him as he stripped off his leather jacket and threw it into a nearby chair before launching into a very loud argument filled with expletives and angry questions. His tee shirt pulled taut across the muscles of his back every time he lifted his hands to express himself and she couldn't help but admire his physique.

"What the fuck did you tell her?"

"Hey, man, Maria and I were just talkin' about things; neither of us revealed any of your deep, dark secrets. Why don't you just chill out and relax before you have a stroke," the big man suggested.

_Maria,_ Michael thought. _So that was her name._ He turned to look at her, unconsciously standing up straighter when he realized she was checking him out. _The name suited her,_ he decided. "I've gotta get on the road; if I leave now I can be back home by mornin'."

"Look, man," Indigo said, lowering his voice, "she's a sweet girl, but you can't leave her here; I'm gonna have a hard enough time explainin' this to my ladies as it is."

"I'm takin' 'er with me."

"You can't expect her to make that trip overnight, Guerin; that poor girl's already worn out and that ride's what, ten or twelve hours?"

"I can do it in about ten and a half." He shook his head adamantly when Indigo's expression turned disapproving. "Look, she wants to stay with me, then she's gonna play by my rules." He turned to stalk back along the deck to the young woman.

Indigo shook his head in exasperation. He'd love to be a fly on the wall at Guerin's house once the two of them were in close quarters with no one else around. He had only spent a few hours with her, but he had a feeling that she wasn't gonna just fall into line the way the other man expected her to.

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Maria stumbled across the hotel room floor and fell onto the unmade bed when Michael unceremoniously shoved her through the door and slammed it shut behind him. She quickly righted herself and got to her feet, moving to sit as far away from him as possible.

"I don't know what you think's about to happen, but I can assure you that I am not having sex with - "

"You'll do what I tell you to do." Michael turned away from the small refrigerator, bottle in hand, and he moved to tower over her. Twisting the top off he tossed it across the room where it landed silently in the small wicker trash can. He took a long drink from the chilled bottle before setting it on the nightstand and calmly reaching down to unbuckle his wide leather belt. His right hand shot out to hold her still when she tried to crawl backwards on the bed and after a brief struggle he released her and stood back to pull the belt through the loops on his pants and then tossed it on the dresser.

Maria stared at the handcuffs connecting her right wrist to the headboard as she tried valiantly to bring her heartbeat under control. For just a minute she had thought… She shook her head, refusing to allow that thought to complete itself. He was employing scare tactics, expecting her to run like a scared rabbit or melt into a puddle of tears at his feet. Well, she had news for him - it wasn't going to work like that. She was just going to have to find a way to deal with him and learn fast to expect the unexpected.

He pulled his tee shirt over his head and folded it up, dropping it on the dresser next to his belt. His hands rested over the snap at the top of his cargo pants as he glanced at the mirror to see if she was watching him. _Uh-huh, just like he suspected._ He popped the snap and lowered the zipper halfway before moving back over to the nightstand to retrieve his drink.

She tensed up when he sat on the edge of the bed next to her but she refused to back away from him. _She was not going to give him the satisfaction_, she thought, irritated that he was acting this way. Her breathing froze in her throat when he suddenly moved and she found herself flat on her back, staring up into his cold eyes as he straddled her waist.

He leaned forward, fisted hands braced on the mattress on either side of her body as he studied her jade eyes for any trace of fear. It pissed him off when he realized that her attention was focused on his dog tags as they swung gently at the end of their chain, so close to her nose that they were almost brushing against it.

"I could fuck you right now if I wanted to."

Maria barely controlled the urge to cringe at his crass terminology as she forced her gaze away from the identification tags that symbolized a life so different from the one her Michael had led. _How was she going to put herself on level ground with this man?_ she wondered as she met his gaze head-on. She could see the anger seething in his dark eyes, but it was unlike any emotion she had ever seen; it was edgy, dangerous, and bordered on violent. _He wasn't the type of man to make idle threats, but if he had been going to hurt her he would've already done it._ She consoled herself with those thoughts.

"You know why you're handcuffed to my bed?" he growled.

"Not really," she said, sounding bored.

Michael drew back and his eyes narrowed suspiciously when she answered without the slightest trace of fear in her voice.

Her gaze lowered to his crotch and she smirked as she looked back up at him. "I'm not one of your over-inflated, empty-headed Barbie dolls whose sole purpose in life is to boost your ego."

"You don't have any clue - "

"What? I don't have any clue what type of women you have sex with? I met your… _friend_ at Indigo's house, heard her rave about your sexual prowess in the man's bathroom. She was very vocal about your…" Her gaze slid down over him again when he slowly leaned back and placed his hands on his thighs. "Attributes."

He followed her gaze, glancing down at himself and just barely bit back a curse when he realized that his dick had decided that it was ready for action. _How the fuck had that happened?_ he wondered, pissed off that his dick was reacting to this woman. He refused to believe he was interested in her sexually despite the erection that would seem to indicate otherwise. He was reaching for his zipper to tug it up when she shifted beneath him and started to speak again.

"If you lower that zipper any further I swear your days as a sexually active hybrid will end tonight."

"Believe me, if I was the slightest bit interested in fuckin' you, I would, and you couldn't do a goddamned thing to stop me," he snapped.

"No? I was involved with an alien for five years, went up against some very bad aliens, and evaded law enforcement numerous times… do you really think I haven't learned a thing or two after those experiences? Touch me again and you'll spend the rest of your life as the only neutered alien on the planet."

"You're a mouthy little bitch." He punched the wall above the headboard and climbed off of the bed. "Don't turn your back or close your eyes," he warned, turning his back to her. "You just never know who might make your worst nightmare come true."

His stomach rolled with nausea as he stalked into the bathroom and started the shower before slamming the door shut and leaning back against it. He raised a trembling hand to his face and drew in a shaky breath, inhaling lungfuls of the hot, moist air. What he had just done felt wrong in every possible way; he wasn't nice by anyone's standards but even he had never stooped so low as to imply that he might force a woman to have sex with him. _It was her fault_, he decided. _If she had just kept that last comment to herself he wouldn't have lost his temper and made a threat that he would never, ever, carry out_. He blamed it on the illness; it was still too new and the lack of knowledge surrounding it was making him edgier than normal.

In the bedroom, Maria grabbed a handful of the comforter and pulled it over herself as she curled up tightly into the fetal position. Tears leaked from the corners of her eyes and fell onto the pillow she was hugging with the arm that wasn't hanging from the headboard. It had taken everything she had to keep her face from revealing her fear to him; at first she hadn't believed he would really hurt her like he had implied, but he had been menacing enough to scare her and now she was questioning whether or not she was safe with him.

She briefly let herself think of her Michael, imagining his long arms wrapped around her, holding her securely against his big, warm body as he whispered reassurances in her ear. She hugged the pillow tighter and as she drifted off into an exhausted, restless sleep, she could almost feel his presence right there with her, making her feel safe and protected.

Michael stepped out of the bathroom with a towel wrapped around his waist and he glanced into the bedroom, surprised to hear nothing but silence. He crept around the bed, ignoring the droplets of water dripping from his hair to splash onto his shoulders and roll down his naked torso. He looked down at the little blond, sound asleep and curled up into a little ball. Her tearstained face was buried in his pillow and she was gripping it tightly with her free arm.

His dark gaze settled on her right arm, suspended above her head and hanging from the headboard by the handcuffs. Bruises marred the flesh of her upper arm where he had grabbed her several times that day and that nauseous feeling surfaced once again. His eyes followed her arm up to her wrist and he winced when he realized just how tightly he had closed the handcuffs; the skin was red and irritated where the metal had pinched her tender flesh. He reached up and with unaccustomed gentleness he released the handcuffs and eased her arm down under the covers.

Refusing to look any deeper into his actions, he backed away from the bed and walked back to the bathroom so he could finish getting ready. _Okay_, he thought, _he had meant to scare her as badly as he obviously had, but he hadn't intended to make her believe that he was capable of __**that**__ kind of violence._

He roughly towel-dried his hair before hanging the towel over one of the chrome rails, grabbing a fresh pair of pants, and pulling them on. He walked over to the sitting area and turned a lamp on before walking back over to the bed. For several very long minutes he stood beside the bed, arms crossed over his chest as he studied her. He looked down when he noticed her feet, still clad in a pair of shoes, sticking out from under the comforter. She was probably sleeping due to exhaustion and he knew she wasn't going to sleep well if she slept the entire night constricted by her street clothes. Not that he personally cared one way or the other, but if she woke up pissy because of a bad night of sleep he'd probably have to listen to her bitching and whining all the way back to L.A.

"Lucky for you I'm an expert at undressin' women," he grumbled as he quickly and efficiently stripped her clothes off and placed them on the nightstand, leaving her dressed only in her bra and panties. Free of the constriction she stretched a little and he could see her visibly relax, though it was only fractionally. He covered her back up and looked around for the small bag she had been carrying earlier, finally locating it sticking out from under the edge of the bed.

He snatched it up and turned off the light next to the bed before grabbing another bottle from the refrigerator and dropping down on the couch in the sitting area. He took a long drink before placing the bottle on the table next to the bag, leaning forward to unzip it and pulling the contents out, one by one. He placed the few pieces of clothing on the table, followed by a folder filled with black-and-white copies of… he flipped through the sheets of paper, frowning when he realized they were old newspaper articles, probably copied at a library.

He set the folder down beside him on the couch and checked the bag for anything else of interest. The last thing he found was a man's leather wallet and he shoved the things on the table aside so he could slouch down and prop his feet up. He flipped the wallet open, mentally counting the meager amount of money tucked inside one of the folds before moving on to the clear pouch in the center that housed a drivers' license. He stared at the photograph of a twenty-year-old that did bear a striking resemblance to him, but despite the name below the picture he didn't believe that it was some other universe's version of him.

He dug through the last couple of pockets in the wallet and pulled out a few photographs, carefully wrapped in clear plastic to protect them from damage. He dropped the wallet on the cushion beside him and unwrapped the plastic, dropping his feet to the floor and leaning forward once more so he could place the pictures face-up on the surface. There were five of them in all and on a hunch he reached for the folder of copied articles and quickly matched the snapshots to the photographs in the articles.

He picked up the group photo and turned it over to look at the names scrawled on the back, frowning as he looked back at the obituaries lined up on the table. Four of the seven people in the photograph were dead… two of them at least eight years _before_ the picture was taken, and another two wouldn't have made it to seventeen, as indicated on the back. Two of them had moved away several years prior to the picture and the last person in the picture, the one that resembled him and even bore his name, couldn't have been photographed on the date written in feminine handwriting.

His gaze settled on the kid that looked like him - _not that he ever would've been caught dead with hair like that_ - and the small blonde tucked in safely against his side. It was easy to see the boy's protective nature in the way he held her and the way his eyes were watching the person who held the camera. He glanced down at the obituary for the young woman sleeping in the bed behind him and for the first time he began to think that the insanity she had been spouting might be true.

He put everything back the way he had found it and placed the bag under the edge of the bed before he checked the locks on the door again. It was all too much to consider; he had to put the thoughts out of his head until he got home and he could focus on it without any distractions. That thought had him shaking his head as he dropped back down on the couch. Maria DeLuca was going to be trouble and he had no choice but to take her with him because if any of this was true he couldn't risk letting her get away.

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Maria awoke by degrees, shifting against the scratchy hotel sheets and freezing when she realized that she could feel them rustling against her bare skin. She knew she had been fully dressed, all the way down to her shoes, when she had fallen asleep, which meant that… she had to grit her teeth at the reminder that he shared the same name and face as her Michael… _Michael_ had undressed her. _Perverted jerk probably enjoyed that_, she thought indignantly. She lifted the comforter up and glanced down at herself, calming slightly when she saw that she wasn't completely naked.

She sat up, surprised to see that she was no longer handcuffed to the bed, and looked around the room. Judging by the weak light filtering in through the closed blinds it was early and her gaze momentarily settled on the man sprawled out on the couch that was too short for his tall frame. _Maybe he did have some redeeming qualities_, she mused as she grabbed her bag and crept into the bathroom for a quick shower. She couldn't deny that he had scared the hell out of her the night before, but as she thought back over those few minutes and she recalled his expression as he left the room, she began to wonder if he hadn't scared himself as well.

After a hot shower, she dressed and crept out into the bedroom to place her bag on the bed. She chewed on her thumbnail as she eased around the furniture in the sitting area to get a better look at the sleeping man, curious to see how much he resembled her Michael when he was asleep. His right arm was bent at the elbow, his head resting on his forearm, and his left arm was lying over his stomach… Her eyes traced over the well-defined chest and abdominal muscles, his skin tight and toned, bronzed, probably from working out under the sun without a shirt on, because she couldn't imagine him being so vain that he would spend time in a tanning bed.

"Decide you wanna piece of this?" he asked, his voice gruff from sleep.

Maria jumped when he spoke, his voice unexpected in the early morning stillness. _So much for redeeming qualities_, she thought, shaking her head. "As tempting as your offer is, I'm gonna pass." She rolled her eyes when he shrugged carelessly and proceeded to scratch himself without the slightest bit of modesty.

"Suit yourself," he muttered. "Your loss." He rolled off of the couch and got to his feet, towering over her as he met her annoyed glare. "Unless you're interested in fuckin' me so I can get rid of this hard-on I'd suggest you move so I can spend some quality one-on-one time with my right hand."

"You're disgusting."

"Deal with it," he tossed over his shoulder on his way to the bathroom. "And while you're out here wishin' I was nailin' you through the mattress, maybe you could get your shit together so we can hit the road. You've already fucked up my schedule and we've got a long ride ahead of us. We're leavin' in fifteen minutes, whether you're ready or not."

Maria gaped after him when he sauntered into the bathroom and turned the shower on but didn't bother to close the door after him. She couldn't believe his audacity and for just a moment she wondered if it was just her, or if he talked to all women that way. He was crude, cruel, and disgusting, and she had a feeling she hadn't even scratched the surface with him yet. She had no idea what she was getting into by going with him to his home, but she had no choice; she had to follow this through to find out why she was here in this universe.


	12. Chapter 11

**Part 11**

Maria was exhausted after ten hours on the road; other than the times they had stopped to fuel up, Michael hadn't bothered to offer to stop for restroom breaks or to eat. If he had a single shred of decency he would've at least made the offer to stop halfway through the trip, but, no, he had insisted on driving the entire distance in one day. The few times he had stopped to fuel up she had been forced to watch and listen to him as he graphically assessed every single female in sight.

She leaned with him as he made a right turn, exhausted beyond belief and wanting nothing more than to get off of the motorcycle before she just fell off. She felt him let up on the throttle and she lifted her head up from its resting place against his back to look around, hoping they were stopping somewhere… anywhere. They left the paved road and turned onto a narrow, gravel road, and she wondered where they were going.

Her eyebrows lifted in surprise when she saw the hacienda-style house situated at the end of the gravel road. She didn't have much time to admire the columns that rose up into three arched openings over the flagstone entryway before they were pulling into the garage and the door was closing behind them.

The silence was deafening when he cut the engine and she reached up to rub her ears. He dismounted and stood next to the motorcycle, glaring at her as he motioned impatiently. "You just gonna sit here all day?"

Maria returned his glare and considered kicking him just for spite. She carefully stood and dismounted, snatching her arm out of his grasp when she stumbled and he caught her. Her entire body was humming after so many hours on the motorcycle and she wanted it to stop.

"Fall on the floor next time," he snapped as he jerked his hand back. He didn't know why he had bothered to stop her fall anyway. He grabbed the saddlebags and walked up the two steps that led into the laundry room, dropping them on the washer before continuing on to the kitchen.

He was hyper-aware of the woman moving around the room behind him and her presence in his home, in the very space that he had never shared with another living soul, was making him anxious and irritable. He dropped his keys and wallet on the counter before grabbing a bottle out of the refrigerator and stalking through the house to make sure no one had been there.

Not knowing what else to do, Maria followed him but stopped when she reached the living room. His home was amazing; beautifully furnished, meticulously maintained, and obviously expensive. Aesthetically, it was everything the home she had shared with her Michael hadn't been, but it lacked the most important things that their humble home had been filled with: love and warmth.

She remained silent when her reluctant host walked through the room and went back into the kitchen. She moved around, looking at the things he surrounded himself with, and frowning when she turned a corner and found herself facing a wall decorated with several dozen different types of weapons. A glass front was mounted over the weapons displayed there, showcasing everything from knives to swords and handguns to machine guns. There were framed photographs and medals next to some of the weapons and she recognized Michael's unsmiling face in all of them. Indigo was in most of them and she leaned in closer to look at the military rank bars situated next to a photograph of Indigo propped up in a hospital bed, his left arm heavily bandaged where his hand had been. She glanced back over the other photographs, searching for one where Indigo was wearing a military rank, but she couldn't find any.

"Lookin' for somethin' in particular?"

She jumped, startled when Michael spoke up behind her, his tone annoyed. "I was just trying to see what this rank means; I don't see it on Indigo's - "

"It's not his," he muttered.

"It's your rank?"

"It is now." He took a drink from the bottle in his right hand before motioning to the military bars. "I took them off of the man responsible for takin' Indigo's hand… after I killed him."

She shuddered at his unemotional statement.

"Why don't we discuss sleepin' arrangements," he suggested, turning to walk down a hall and clearly expecting her to follow him. He stepped into a large bedroom and turned the overhead light on even though there was enough sunlight coming through the windows to illuminate the room.

"This is your bedroom," Maria guessed, standing in the doorway. The room, like the rest of the house, was beautifully furnished and very masculine. His presence was strongest in this room and she could feel his predatory gaze following her every movement as she moved to glance into the bathroom. _It was the size of a small country_, she thought, shaking her head. "I'm guessing since you're showing off your bedroom, you must not have a guest room?"

"Why would I have a guest room when I don't have guests?" he asked, rolling his eyes heavenward. _As if he would bother with people in his own house!_

"Well, it's unexpectedly nice of you to offer your bedroom, but I couldn't ask you to sleep on the couch." She whirled around to look at him when he actually laughed, the sound rusty from lack of use.

"I have no intention of sleepin' on the couch. If I hadn't brought you back here you'd still be on the streets of Santa Fe, tryin' to find someone to pull your little scam on." He continued, ignoring her when she opened her mouth to protest. "The validity of your story has yet to be proven and until I have somethin' more concrete than your insane ramblings you're stayin' here, and at the very least you could be grateful and show some fuckin' appreciation!" he roared.

Maria bit back the overwhelming urge to laugh at him. He was unsettled by her presence and he apparently thought that he had come up with the perfect solution; she would be off of the streets and he would be… satisfied. "Okay, so, let me get this straight," she said once she could speak without laughing in his face. "In exchange for the relative safety that being here with you will provide, which I would assume includes shelter, food, and clothing…" She went on at his impatient nod. "Right, so in exchange for these things, I should just… what, exactly? Strip naked, climb up on your bed, and spread my legs for you? And presumably, I would do this anytime the mood strikes you, would that be a correct assessment of your plan?"

Michael scowled at her clinical description. "Yeah, that's basically correct, but it's not like you wouldn't be getting anything out of it. I've been with a lot of women and I've never once left a single one of 'em unsatisfied; you wouldn't be any different."

_Bastard!_ She would show him who Maria DeLuca was. "A _lot_ of women, huh? You're just making this offer sound too good to pass up." His dark eyes were scanning over her body, paying no attention to the fact that she was being sarcastic. A quick glance at his crotch told her exactly where his few functioning brain cells were currently residing and she shook her head in disgust. She walked up to him and her eyes turned to shards of jade ice as she took in his smug expression. "I hope you have a very good relationship with your right hand because you can't honestly think that I have any intention of having sex with you."

That got his attention and his eyes stopped their assessment of her body to focus on her angry gaze. He started to argue when she brushed past him, close enough to touch him, and he was reaching out to stop her when she suddenly turned and kneed him in the crotch.

Maria stared at him when he dropped to his knees, his left hand braced on his thigh as he fought to control his breathing. She hadn't planned to do that; she had just reacted when his hand had wrapped around her wrist.

"That was uncalled for," he wheezed angrily. "I've never fucked a woman against her will and I'm not about to change that."

"Not now, you're not," Maria remarked, pleased to have put him in such torment.

"I'll bet you're a real wildcat between the sheets, but I'll be goddamned if I have any interest in findin' out now." He struggled to his feet and dragged her back out into the living room, shoving her down on the couch before turning to go back to his bedroom. "Welcome to the guestroom."

She took a quick look around the depressing room. "You expect me to sleep out here?"

"You can hang from the fuckin' rafters for all I care," he snarled as he slowly crossed the room. His dick would probably be black and blue after that vicious kick and with the way his luck had been going lately, it'd probably go back on strike just to be spiteful.

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Maria paced around the living room, trying to decide whether she wanted to incur his wrath any further by demanding a pillow and a blanket. Her stomach rumbled, reminding her that they had only stopped to eat once - and only because _he_ had been hungry. She glanced back towards the hallway that led to his bedroom before going in the opposite direction and entering the kitchen.

It wasn't quite dark outside but she searched for the light switch and flooded the room with light anyway. The kitchen was more than adequate but she had to wonder why he had every possible modern convenience when it was obvious by the contents of his cabinets and refrigerator that he ate like a bachelor. The refrigerator had a minimum of food; most of the space was taken up by bottled beer, the doors held things like mustard, ketchup, and a jar of jalapenos, and the drawers at the bottom were packed with sandwich things. The freezer was predictable, filled to bursting with frozen pizzas, TV dinners, and other frozen… delights. The cabinets were nearly empty with the exception of several boxes of cereal and a box of taco shells that looked like they were at least a year or two past their expiration date.

"Figures," she mumbled. There was nothing there that qualified as a vegetable; not fresh, frozen, or canned. "Okay, looks like tonight is sandwich night… if he has any bread." She finally found a loaf of bread in a cabinet beneath the island in the center of the kitchen and she placed it on the counter along with sandwich meat and the jar of mustard. She shook her head at the pathetic meal, but it was better than nothing so she ate it and cleaned up after herself before going back into the living room.

Restlessness quickly began to overtake her as she paced the length of the room repeatedly and she paused to stare at the hallway. Curiosity got the best of her and she wandered down the long hall to look around. She was just about to enter what appeared to be an office when the door at the end was jerked open and Michael stalked towards her.

"No one said you could stick your nose in my stuff," he snapped. "Go back in the other room and get some sleep."

"It's barely eight o'clock; I can't go to sleep this early," she argued. She was doing her best to ignore the fact that he was only wearing a pair of boxers, but that wasn't easy to do when he stopped mere inches away and loomed over her. She was sure he was trying to be intimidating, but if he thought crowding her while he was almost naked was going to scare her then he was in for a shock. "Besides, you didn't even give me a blanket or a pillow… how do you expect me to sleep?"

"Why are you snoopin' through my house?" Michael had been trying to get comfortable when he heard the floorboards in the hall creaking and the sound had grated on nerves already stretched too far.

"What've you got to hide?"

Her tone was challenging, further pissing him off. "It's my goddamned house!" he exploded. "Just because I don't want you snoopin' around my house doesn't mean I have somethin' to hide; it just means nothin' here is any of your fuckin' business." His eyes darkened with irritation when she didn't back away from him. "Stop movin' around so damn much; you're makin' noise and I want it quiet!"

"Walking through the house is - "

Michael moved past her, grabbing her arm only after his already-tender crotch was out of kicking range and dragged her back into the living room. "This is your space…" He let go of her to make an erratic motion with his hands that encompassed the couch and its surrounding area. "Right here. You don't need to go anywhere else. If you're incapable of remaining here I'll be happy to solve the problem and cuff you again." He nodded in satisfaction when Maria sat down on the couch and crossed her arms over her chest.

"Do you think I could at least have a blanket?"

Michael's eyes narrowed as he tried to decipher whether or not there was some ulterior motive behind her request. After several minutes he went to retrieve a blanket and threw it on the couch beside her before going back to his bedroom and slamming the door. He didn't normally go to bed this early but he was exhausted after dealing with the lunatic sleeping on his couch and he just wanted the oblivion sleep would hopefully provide.

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Maria opened her eyes and looked around in confusion as she tried to get her bearings. It was early, as evidenced by the sunlight just beginning to creep across the wood floor. The events of the day before came flooding back and she forced herself to stay still as she listened for anything that would indicate Michael was awake. The house was silent and she settled back down, pulling the blanket up to her chin and snuggling under it. She was on the verge of falling asleep again when she heard a door slide open and a moment later something hit the back of the couch and her eyes flew open.

"Wake your ass up and make yourself useful," Michael growled as he walked around the couch. "I want breakfast ready by the time I get outta the shower."

"Go to hell."

His right eyebrow quirked at the sleepy snarl and he reached down to grab a corner of the blanket covering her, jerking it away from her body and carrying it with him to his room. "I'll be outta the shower in fifteen minutes and I'm not jokin' about breakfast."

Fifteen minutes later he stepped out of his bedroom and rubbed his hand through his damp hair, frowning when he didn't detect the slightest hint of anything that smelled like breakfast. He stopped at the entrance to the living room and propped his hands on his hips when he saw the woman who was once more sleeping.

"Fuckin' hell," he muttered. He went into the kitchen and opened the cabinets one by one, looking for something large enough to meet his needs. As soon as he located the cooking pot he had been searching for he placed it in the sink and filled it with cold water from the faucet.

He carried it into the living room and stood behind the couch, holding it over her head as he kicked the leg of the heavy piece of furniture. "I'm givin' you one last chance to get your ass up, Wildcat." He smirked when she grumbled under her breath, cursing him and quite possibly threatening him with bodily injury. "Don't say I didn't warn you."

Maria choked and sputtered when she was suddenly doused with cold water… a _lot_ of cold water. She shot into an upright position and used her wet shirtsleeve to get the worst of the water out of her eyes. "What is wrong with you?" she shouted, standing up and looking down at the water dripping off of her clothes.

"I got your ass off the streets and I would appreciate a little fuckin' gratitude!"

"And I would appreciate a hot shower, dry clothes, my Michael, and my own damned reality!" She was screaming at him, but the anger helped push down the pain and sadness that kept trying to surface. "Instead I'm soaking wet and I'm stuck here with you in a reality where you're a cold, mean-tempered asshole! We don't always get what we want!"

"A cold, mean-tempered asshole who could've just left your ass on the streets!" he shouted.

Maria drew herself up to her full height and stared him down. "I want to take a shower," she said, her teeth clenched to keep from screaming again.

"And I want breakfast. I'd prefer sex, but since you won't give it up, I want breakfast." He didn't know why he was participating in such a stupid argument but he wasn't willing to let her win.

"You want breakfast." She nodded slowly and stalked past him, knowing that he would follow simply because he wasn't comfortable with her being anywhere in his home when he couldn't see what she was doing. She jerked the freezer door open and grabbed a frozen pizza, shutting the door with her shoulder as she slammed the box down on the counter in front of him. "Bon appétit, asshole."

Michael stared at the box as she breezed past him, cursing his brain for locking up and not forming a coherent response to her baiting. His fist came down in the center of the box, crushing it and leaving a crater in the middle of the frozen pizza. He followed her back into the living room, stopping to watch her as she carefully placed the leather wallet in her bag before sorting through the few items of clothing she owned.

He could see that he wasn't going to get anything resembling peace until she'd had a shower. "There's only one bathroom; don't move any of my stuff around." He paused at the entrance to the hallway when she didn't move to follow him. "I don't have all day, so if you want a shower you'd better come on."

She hurried after him, but only because she desperately wanted a hot shower. Like every other room in the house, the bathroom was immaculate and she was certain that was most likely due to the time he had served in the military. The room was huge but it somehow shrank the moment she was standing in it with him.

"Cabinets on that side have towels an' washcloths an' stuff," he said, pointing at the cabinets that lined one entire wall below a row of windows that were high enough that there was no reason to worry about anyone looking in. "Cabinets on the wall on the side with the sinks have soap an' shampoo; I ain't got any chick deodorant so you're on your own there. I assume you know how to operate the shower… and the whirlpool jets if you decide to take a bath." He stretched before slouching against the doorframe and grinning at her. "And, uh, if you happen to feel the need to touch yourself while you're thinkin' about me in the shower, go with it."

_And he just had to go and ruin the most civil moment since they had met._ "Dream on; I have no intention of doing any such thing."

"Liar." He chuckled smugly and backed out of the room, closing the door behind him.

Maria shook her head; _his ego was unbelievable!_ The man had apparently been catered to by every female he had ever encountered and he needed to be brought back down to earth.


	13. Chapter 12

**Part 12**

Michael ignored her when she came back into the living room, keeping his eyes focused on the magazine in front of him. He had cleaned up the water dripping off of the couch and pooled on the floor before going through the mail to find something to read, but only because he didn't want the water to ruin the furniture or the hardwood floor.

"I suppose you only subscribe to that magazine for the articles?"

He looked up from the centerfold he had been admiring when she spoke, her voice laced with disgust. "If I say yes, I'm a liar, and if I say no, I'm just a pervert, right?" He slouched down further in his chair and unbuckled his belt. "Now, you can either go make breakfast or you can stay here and enjoy the show."

Maria rolled her eyes at the threat; despite the fact that he was completely disgusting and lacked any social skills whatsoever, she was fairly certain that he wasn't going to follow through with his… show. "What you have in your kitchen doesn't qualify as food; every single thing in there is lacking in any type of nutritional value. I have no problem cooking in exchange for being here, but I'm not making or eating the crap you've got in there. I'll be happy to make you a grocery list - "

"You can eat what I've got here or you can fuckin' starve." End of discussion as far as he was concerned.

"Then I guess I'll starve." _That dumbass!_ She was starting to get fed up with him.

"Fine. Go throw a pizza in the oven; I'm still hungry." Michael watched her, fully intending to win this round.

"Did you not hear a single thing I just said?" Maria gritted out. It was taking everything she had to resist the temptation to strangle him.

Michael stood up and threw the magazine down on the coffee table. "I'm goin' out for a couple of hours; can I trust you to stay put or do I need to cuff you to somethin'?"

"Where do you think I'm gonna go?" she snapped. "You live in the middle of nowhere."

"Be sure to remember that."

"Yeah, I'll do that." Her gaze slid over him and she smirked as she met his annoyed eyes. "You might wanna remember to not go out in public with your pants undone."

Michael buckled his belt and cursed long and loud as he stalked around the house gathering his things so he could leave. He didn't want to forget anything because he had no intention of coming back anytime soon. "I'm leavin'." He paused in the doorway to stare at the back of her head when she didn't turn to look at him. "Don't touch anything, don't move anything, and don't do anything while I'm gone." He hurried out of the house before she could say something that would probably just piss him off anyway, needing to get away before he imploded.

Maria waited until the roar of the motorcycle's engine died down in the distance before she glanced around, wondering where to start her exploration. She wasn't worried about his threats; he was a jerk, he was mean, and he hadn't exactly handled her with kid gloves, but he wouldn't intentionally hurt her.

She decided to have another sandwich before she set off on her search. She needed to make a grocery list because he would eventually give in, she was certain of it. He didn't even have the most basic items that people had in their kitchens so they were going to have to start from scratch.

Paper, she needed paper. She went to the room that she had glanced into the night before, having identified it as an office, to look for paper. Of course nothing was out of place, no notebooks lying around or untidy papers in a pile anywhere; everything was carefully put away, out of sight.

_It was almost creepy_, she thought as she sat in the chair behind the desk. Her Michael was a slob; he was much better than he had been when they had first gotten together, but he still tended to think that things belonged wherever he dropped them. This man's house was meticulous, nothing was out of place and everything was so… sterile.

She shook her head as she finally found a notebook in the bottom drawer, but it was the sketchbook beneath that caught her attention. She carefully lifted it out, placing it on the pristine surface in front of her and opened the cover. Her Michael liked to sketch and she had been his favorite subject, but these were nothing like his sketches. She flipped through the pages, glancing over what looked like rough maps with notes scrawled in the margins. She had a feeling these were somehow related to his work with the military; they weren't drawings created out of a passion for the subject, there was no life in them and they lacked any personal influence.

She placed the sketchbook back in the drawer and closed it before leaning back in the chair and using her foot to slowly spin it around. She stared at the computer on the desk when she returned to her original position, knowing instinctively that it would be a waste of time because he would have protected anything of interest with a password. She would come back to it later, once she had spent more time with him; maybe then she'd have a better chance of figuring out his password.

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Michael slouched down in a corner of the small diner, his back against the wall as he glanced over the menu. He placed an order with the overweight, middle-aged waitress as he wondered what his life was coming to. He wasn't generally given to self-analysis, and this wasn't any different; he just wanted to know how he had suddenly gone from eating what he wanted, having sex when he wanted, and doing what he wanted in his own home, to being run out of his home, eating at the local diner that he normally avoided, and not having sex. He couldn't believe he hadn't had sex in a week! He hadn't been celibate for that long since he had discovered what sex was.

_It was all her fault_, he thought, annoyed. If she wasn't there he'd be out getting laid and doing what he normally did. But, instead, he was stuck with some insane woman who was convinced she was from another reality where she had been involved with some guy who was a commander or something in some alien military. Oh, and just to make things more interesting, the guy looked like him.

Apparently that wasn't enough incentive to make her have sex with him though. He dug into his steak omelet smothered in sautéed onions and fresh jalapenos, as he considered the crazy woman staying with him. He didn't understand her; it made no sense to him why she wouldn't take advantage of what he had to offer. _Besides, he was the one who would be making the sacrifice… if she ever gave in and agreed to have sex with him they'd probably end up fucking a couple times a day for however long she was there. Definitely his sacrifice_, he thought with a nod. He had never lived with a woman and he made it a rule to never get involved for more than a night. He frowned at the word and shook his head. He wasn't interested in getting involved, he just wanted satisfaction from something besides his right hand, and if she was gonna be there anyway, what was the big deal?

It was obvious from the pictures he had seen that the young couple had been in a sexual relationship, so it wasn't like she was protecting her virtue or saving herself for the guy. She had to miss sex, right? He had no idea how long it was going to take to figure out what was going on with her alternate reality theory, but the longer it took the more she would miss having sex. If she was right - and he wasn't saying she was - but, if she was right and the kid in the picture was him… well, if the kid was anything like him in the sack, she would be going through withdrawal soon.

His mood lifted with those thoughts and he dug into the stack of pancakes on the right side of the plate as his appetite reasserted itself. Under normal circumstances he'd have already lost interest in nailing her, but she was a challenge and he never backed down from a challenge. He was confident he would win; she was eventually going to give in and beg him to fuck her, he just had to wait her out. In the meantime though, he needed to find a woman he could fuck because he didn't know how long she was gonna hold out and he sure as hell wasn't interested in forming a long relationship with his right hand.

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Maria walked along the back deck, her gaze searching the land surrounding Michael's house. Curiosity had her walking along a well-worn path to the red barn situated back behind the house. He didn't strike her as the type of individual who would have animals of any kind; he was too wrapped up in himself and his own wants and needs to have the time or consideration for any other being.

The double doors were locked and a heavy chain was laced through the metal handgrips and padlocked to keep intruders out. She sighed and walked back to the house, bored from hours of searching for anything of interest. She had been all over the house and the garage, but other than his collection of weapons and the stash of porn tapes and magazines on a shelf in his bedroom she hadn't found anything personal. She had hoped to find something that might give her a clue as to why the Granolith had chosen this place to send her to, but she was beginning to think that it had made a huge mistake.

She turned her head to the side when she heard the rumbling of the motorcycle's engine as Michael returned home, wondering what kind of mood he was going to be in. He had been gone for hours and the sun had already started its descent in the west, marking the coming end to another day.

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Michael slammed the door behind him and grabbed a bottle of beer from the refrigerator on his way into the living room. He had been gone longer than he had anticipated and he still hadn't gotten laid. Oh, he had found the perfect piece of ass for a quick romp; she had been hot, wet, and ready to go in no time, but his dick had apparently had other ideas. Stupid bitch had even suggested that maybe he needed to see a doctor for his _condition_.

So, he was in no mood for a confrontation of any kind with the woman sitting in his living room. He paused beside the coffee table and picked up the television remote, aiming it at the flat screen and putting the basketball game on before dropping it and snatching his magazine up. He completely ignored her in favor of slouching down in his chair and propping his feet up on the table.

He watched the game until it broke for a commercial and then turned his attention to the magazine in his lap. He opened it up, his gaze scanning over the glossy pages filled with naked women posed in various sexual positions. He glanced up at the television from time to time and he frowned when he looked back down and found two sheets of paper folded in half between the pages of the centerfold.

He dropped the magazine and opened the papers up, and his temper flared when he realized what it was. "What part of don't touch anything did you not understand?" he yelled as he slammed his beer down on the table beside him. He was so pissed off he didn't notice the liquid sloshing out of the bottle and pouring over his hand to pool on the polished surface.

Maria looked up when he started to throw his fit, but she remained silent as she waited to see what he would say next.

"What the fuck is this?" He threw the papers on the coffee table and paced restlessly. "Are you gonna answer or have you suddenly forgotten how to speak?" He snatched the bottle up and took a long drink. "Answer me! Because I somehow doubt you've lost the use of your vocal cords since I left this mornin'."

"What's it look like?" she snapped. "It's a grocery list."

"I told you I'm not goin' to the store - there's nothin' wrong with the food I've got here."

"What you've got here barely qualifies as food."

Michael prowled around the room, the normally spacious area suddenly feeling confined and too small. He was gritting his teeth so hard his head was starting to hurt and he had to force his jaw to relax. "I am not goin' to the store while there is food in this house and unless you were lookin' through that magazine for tips I'd suggest you keep your hands off of my stuff."

"Sticking the grocery list in the centerfold was the best way to get your attention; I have a feeling putting it anywhere else would've been a waste of time."

"Puttin' it there didn't make a damn bit of difference because I'm not goin' to the store." He glanced down at himself and swore under his breath. Three hours ago he'd had a willing woman who wanted to be fucked and his dick had refused to cooperate, and now there wasn't a willing woman in sight and he had a raging hard-on.

His eyes darkened when she snorted derisively and folded her arms over her chest as she stared at him. "Why don't you explain somethin' to me."

Maria looked up at him when he cornered her on the couch, his hands braced against the back of the couch on either side of her shoulders. His eyes were so dark they were nearly black, he was breathing hard, and she could smell the beer on his breath. "What?" She cursed her voice for sounding so weak.

"This guy that you think I look like - "

"I didn't say you looked like him, I said you are him, just in a parallel universe."

"Yeah, whatever, that's not important. If I'm supposed to be him then we look alike, right? And you were with him, sexually - "

"That's really none of your business."

"Just answer the fuckin' question! We look alike and you fucked him."

"Obviously you look alike." She shook her head at his lack of understanding. "It's a parallel universe; events may have happened differently, and there may be subtle differences in appearances, but basically - "

Michael held his hands up, requesting silence. "You fucked him."

Maria had to grit her teeth at his continued use of the graphic phrase. "What Michael and I have goes much deeper than just base, animal - "

"I thought you said he's dead."

The reminder hit her like a physical blow and she struggled to keep breathing.

Michael was oblivious to her pain, unused to trying to decipher people's emotions and too focused on getting an answer to his question to search her reaction to his callous words. "I wanna know why you could fuck him but you won't fuck me. What's the difference if we look alike?"

"You want to know why…" Maria shook her head at his stupidity. "You look alike but that's where the similarity ends," she shouted, ducking under his right arm and moving away from him. "You're nothing like him! He was good and kind and decent; he had a horrible childhood and he still grew up to be a man with a strong character and a good heart. Yes, we made love, but I never _fucked_ him." She glared at him from across the room. "And you can think what you want but I'm not gonna have sex with you just because you look like my Michael. You're not half the man he was and you never will be."

Michael turned to watch her, his right hand clenched around the bottle so tightly he was surprised it hadn't shattered from the pressure. He hadn't asked her to measure him up against his counterpart who was obviously perfect; all he wanted to know was why she wouldn't agree to fuck him. "Fine, the guy was a saint and I'm the scum of the earth; all I wanna know is what the big deal is since we look alike?"

"Have you ever had a single meaningful relationship?"

"I have single, meaningful, one-night stands; I have no interest in anything beyond that." He emptied the bottle and looked at it for a moment.

"I'm not gonna have sex with you; I'm in love with Michael and obviously that's a concept you can't wrap your tiny brain around, but I will eventually figure out how to return to my universe and fix things so the accident never happens, and I'm not gonna cheat on him while I'm waiting for that to happen."

"You're not gonna cheat on him?" he repeated, confused. "If I'm him, only in another universe, how is that cheating?"

Maria was getting frustrated with this conversation. "I'm not gonna stand here are argue semantics with you all night. I'm not the one-night stand type anyway, so you - "

"You don't have to worry about that; we can have sex every damn day. I mean, you're gonna be here anyway, so it'd be convenient."

"I'm not having sex with you." What language did she need to speak for him to get it?

"What happens if you're stuck here? Huh? What then? Say for whatever reason, this trip was one-way and you have no way to return home… what then?" Not that he wanted her to stick around; he enjoyed his freedom too much. She would have to go soon, but that didn't mean they couldn't have sex in the meantime.

Maria refused to think about his theory. No way. The Granolith had to have a reason to send her here. "You're not him and even if I couldn't go home, I couldn't be with you. You have his name and his face, but you're everything he isn't, and my heart could never let me be with someone like you."

Michael was already pissed off and listening to her tell him how he wasn't as good as some dead guy and she'd never consent to having sex with him for that reason made him so angry he couldn't see straight. He paced around for several minutes before he suddenly swept everything off of the end table next to his chair, picked it up, and threw it through the sliding doors that opened out onto the deck.

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Michael lay in his bed hours later staring sightlessly at the ceiling in his bedroom, trying to figure out why he had let her get under his skin. He had always had a bad temper and most people realized that and backed down, but she continued to provoke him past the point where anyone else would have known to stop. Now he was going to have to spend the next day going into the city to buy replacement doors and installing them.

It was well after midnight and he hadn't been able to sleep despite hours of lying in bed surrounded by silence. His mind kept going over the conversation… argument… he still wasn't sure what category any exchange of words he'd had with the infuriating woman fell into.

She had kept going on about his counterpart who was apparently the model of perfection while constantly pointing out that she was not going to have sex with him. He really wanted nothing more than to call it her loss and forget about it, but his dick had taken an interest in her that he just didn't understand. Granted, it wasn't imperative for him to necessarily like a woman to fuck her, but the fact that his dick was refusing to cooperate unless she happened to be around was a new and completely unwelcome experience.

He shoved that thought aside and focused on what she had said about his counterpart in her universe… _God, he was starting to buy into this bullshit_, he thought. What had she meant when she had said that the Michael in her universe had had a horrible childhood? His childhood hadn't been any bed of roses but he wouldn't exactly call it horrible; lonely, maybe, but not horrible. He snorted and shook his head. Please… how bad could the guy's childhood have been? It couldn't have been that bad considering her belief that he was such a saint.

_Yes, we made love, but I never fucked him… I'm in love with Michael and obviously that's a concept you can't wrap your tiny brain around… _No, he couldn't wrap his mind around such an antiquated concept; love was just a word that people used to explain the ridiculous urge to form a relationship based on sexual compatibility. It was such a stupid notion and he didn't know how seemingly intelligent people allowed themselves to be lured into that trap. Why couldn't they just call it what it was? Why did they have to go and romanticize it? Did they really think changing the terminology would civilize that animalistic-driven lust and make it somehow more acceptable? That by calling it making love instead of fucking it somehow tamed that base instinct to find satisfaction at every possible opportunity? He shook his head; he didn't want to think about any of this any longer because it was only making his headache worse.

He rolled over and punched his pillow before settling into a new position and wishing for the oblivion of sleep. He slept much better after having sex but until he figured out how to control his dick that was going to be a problem. Jerking off wasn't anywhere near as satisfying and after a week of that he was bored with it and he craved the physical exhaustion that came after a long night of fucking.

He finally had to give up after another two hours of tossing and turning and he went out to the shop to find something to work on, hoping it would take his mind off of things. He eventually lost himself in the intricacies of an engine that he was repairing and he forgot all about the woman in his house and all the problems she had brought into his life.

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Maria stared at the wood covering the sliding doors the next morning and wondered if he always reacted so violently when things didn't go his way. He had left the room after throwing the table through the glass doors, returning several minutes later to clean up the glass that was everywhere. Afterwards he had boarded the doors up and gone to his room, slamming the door and not coming out again until morning.

She had heard him leave the house about an hour ago, taking his truck instead of the motorcycle, and not bothering to wake her rudely like he had the day before. The grocery list was still lying on the coffee table and she was certain he had left it there on purpose. He refused to go to the store because he felt there was plenty of food… A slow smile spread over her face as her mind began to formulate a plan. _Oh, yeah, he was going to the grocery store tonight._

For the next couple of hours she worked on carrying out her plan while her mind turned over the events of the night before. The sad thing was she didn't think Michael was kidding or being a smartass; he was genuinely confused and didn't understand why she wouldn't have sex with him. It was evident by his behavior that he was used to getting his way and he acted like a spoiled child when he was denied what he wanted.

Once she had finished ensuring that he would have no choice but to make a trip to the grocery store she went to take a shower. She only had a couple sets of clothes and she was wearing her last clean shirt; she had one more pair of jeans, but she needed to find something to wear while she did a load of laundry.

_It was the only solution_, she thought as she opened the door to the closet in Michael's bedroom and turned the light on.


	14. Chapter 13

**Part 13**

Michael walked through the aisles of the large home improvement center, ignoring the bothersome employees who kept stepping into his path to offer their assistance. He knew where he was going, what he was there for, and he had no need of them or their pesky offers to find everything he needed.

He finally reached the far end of the store where dozens of doors in every imaginable design and style were lined up on the wall. He wandered along the aisle until he reached the section that housed the outer doors, quickly locating the ones that he needed and cringing internally when he glanced at the price.

Thirty minutes later, after standing in line behind some moron who couldn't make up his mind about whether or not he wanted an extended warranty on his purchase Michael got into his truck and backed up to the dock so the doors could be loaded. He contemplated stopping for something to eat but decided against it in favor of getting back home and installing the doors while he still had plenty of daylight. He checked his watch; he could have a cold beer and throw a pizza in the oven while he was removing the frames from the broken doors, eat, and still be finished in plenty of time for the game.

The hardware store he had gone to was nearly an hour from his house and his stomach was rumbling by the time he drove around to unload the doors on the back deck. He wrestled the large crated doors up onto the deck and leaned them up against the house before grabbing a hammer out of the toolbox in his truck and prying the boards away from the house.

He carried the large boards back out to the shop and put them away before going back to remove the old frames. He slid them into the truck so he could put them in the garage until he got around to hauling them off and then went inside to fix something to eat. He stepped through the glassless doorframes and went into the kitchen, barely pausing to look around for his unwanted houseguest.

He pulled the refrigerator door open, scanning the shelves and quickly realizing that instead of filling every available inch of shelf space, the bottled beers occupied only half of the top shelf. He grabbed a beer and uncapped it, tossing the cap into the trash before taking a long drink of the cold liquid and contemplating this new development. He frowned as a thought occurred to him and he opened the door above, unprepared for the sight of an empty freezer, and his left hand tightened on the door as his teeth clenched together painfully.

He slammed both doors shut and stormed through the house looking for _her_, and he quickly concluded that she was either hiding like an intelligent human being or she was in the bathroom. He shook his head at the thought that she would hide from him and barged into the bathroom, unconcerned with modesty or propriety as he jerked the shower curtain aside.

Michael knew it was a mistake the moment he did it; not because it was wrong, but because the vision of her standing in his shower, naked and wet, was going to fuel his fantasies and keep him awake at night.

"Did you need something?" Maria snapped, forcing her arms to stay at her sides. She wasn't going to give him the satisfaction of cowering or hiding; his intimidation tactics were not going to work on her. She ignored the familiar feelings that rushed through her as his dark eyes slid over her body. Those feelings had only ever been invoked in response to one man and despite appearances he wasn't that man so she refused to acknowledge them.

Michael's eyes snapped up to meet her annoyed gaze and he shook his head. "What happened to all the food?"

"What you so generously refer to as food is gone."

"I can see that it's gone!" he roared. His body had immediately reacted to her and it was only pissing him off more. "What the fuck did you do with it?"

"Your garbage disposal got quite a workout today," was her only answer as she turned back to step under the spray, rinsing the soap from her body.

His eyes unwillingly followed the soap's path as it traveled down her body and after a moment he jerked the curtain back into place and stalked out of the room. In the kitchen once more he took a drink of his beer and set the bottle back down so he could brace his hands on the counter in front of him. He let his head drop forward and he stared at his traitorous dick, angry at its eager response to the woman in his shower. "You might as well hang it up because you're not getting any attention from me; I'm sick of catering to your obsession with her. So, you can either get yourself under control or you can have an ice-cold shower to calm you down."

"That's an interesting approach," Maria commented, leaning against the doorframe. He was probably so used to being alone that it hadn't occurred to him that she would overhear his… conversation.

Michael swore loudly and turned to face her; he couldn't hide his body's reaction to her so he didn't even bother trying. He was ready to yell at her for destroying all of his food and emptying out most of the beer, but the words froze in his throat when he saw that she was wearing one of his shirts. He wanted to scream in sheer frustration when he realized that her legs were bare below the hem of the shirt. "What the hell are you wearin'?"

Maria looked down at herself before shrugging her shoulders. "I needed something to wear and since I only have a few things and they need to be washed, it was either this or I was gonna have to walk around naked until I can wash my clothes."

"Well, you've got plenty of fuckin' time to do laundry because now I've gotta go to the goddamned store! Do you have any idea how much money you threw away this mornin'?" He stared at her in disbelief when she took four steps forward and placed the grocery list on the island that separated them. "I've already told you that I'm not buyin' a fuckin' thing on that list."

"Then I hope you plan to eat out a lot because if you bring one more frozen pizza or dinner into this house they'll meet the same fate as the previous residents of your freezer. You cannot eat that crap the way you do and expect to live - "

"I don't need you tellin' me what to do," he snarled. "I've made it this long without any outside interference and I intend to go on the same damn way." He slammed his fists down on the counter, angered by her continued defiance. "This is my house and since I don't know how long I'm gonna be stuck with you there're gonna be some ground rules that I expect you to follow."

"And I suppose all of these rules will benefit you."

"If the rules were gonna benefit me you'd be fetching my beer, cookin' my dinner, and we'd be screwin' our brains out. So, no, obviously, the fuckin' rules aren't gonna benefit me." He had started to pace while he ranted and he hadn't even realized it.

"First, I do not _fetch_ anything for anyone, and second, I don't mind cooking for you; it's only fair since I'm staying here with you - "

"And yet I haven't seen you cook a single damn thing."

"Throwing a pizza or frozen dinner in the oven is not cooking and I will not waste my time with it. You go to the store and buy what's on that list and I'll be happy to cook." It was incredible how he didn't seem to care about his health. Sure, aliens didn't usually get sick, but with the way he was eating it was only a matter of time.

"Uh-huh, so you'll earn your keep as long as it's in a way that suits you; that's very mature." _This girl had some nerve, telling him what to eat; what's next, telling him what to wear?_

"Says the man who five minutes ago was carrying on a conversation with his penis."

Michael bristled at her insolent tone and his gaze dropped to the grocery list, reading over the items written there. "You want me to buy you clothes?"

"I only have a few things, but I have no problem making myself right at home and wearing your shirts until I have a little more variety. Oh, and there are also some other things on there that I'll need; deodorant, body wash, tampons…" She almost laughed at his disgusted expression. "But, I'll be happy to go with you to make sure you get the right brands."

"You're not goin' anywhere with me," he growled, snatching the list up and shoving it in his pocket. He walked around the island with the intention of leaving and he crossed his arms over his chest when the woman standing in the doorway didn't move. "Get out of the way or I'll leave without puttin' those new doors up."

"I am going with you; I can only imagine how completely lost you'd be in the feminine hygiene products aisle, and I'm sure as hell not letting you pick my clothes out."

"And you plan to go dressed like that?"

"Why don't you go put the doors up and let me worry about how I'm gonna dress." And with that said she turned and walked away, leaving him alone in the kitchen with his mouth hanging open.

Michael cursed and finished his beer before disposing of the bottle and walking back out to the deck where the doors were waiting. It took almost two hours before the doors were in place and the crating material was loaded into the truck. He retrieved a bottle of glass cleaner from the cabinet under the sink, along with a roll of paper towels, and sprayed the glass, wiping it until it was spotless.

Once he was satisfied that it was as good as it was going to get he put everything away and locked the doors. Pulling the keys out of his pocket he walked out to the truck and pulled the drivers' side door open. He took a step back when he noticed the woman sitting against the door on the passengers' side and he wondered when she had slipped past him to get in the truck.

"Thought you were gonna leave without me, didn't you?" Maria asked when he slid in behind the steering wheel.

Michael grunted and started the truck, determined to ignore her for as long as possible. He glanced in the rearview mirror and decided to make a quick stop to dispose of the doorframes and the crating materials before going to do something he absolutely detested and did as seldom as possible.

"Doesn't your stereo work?"

He bit his bottom lip and his right hand clenched on the steering wheel. This was a huge mistake, he could already feel it. He relaxed slightly when she fell silent once more, but he just knew it wasn't gonna last long.

"Do you have any idea how much pollution a vehicle like this contributes to - "

"Like I give a fuck," he muttered. "It ain't even my planet."

"So, just because you're not from this planet you don't care that you're contributing to the overall destruction of the environment?"

"No."

"How can you be like that?" She shook her head, dumfounded by his careless attitude towards everyone and everything. Her Michael had cared about those things; what had happened to the Michael of this world?

"How can you talk so fuckin' much?" he snapped. "Could you just shut up for more than thirty consecutive seconds? God, I haven't heard a single coherent thought in my own damn head since you showed up."

"Well, considering the fact that your thoughts revolve around sex, food, and beer, I can't imagine that you've missed too many meaningful thoughts since my arrival." Maria smirked, happy with her comeback.

Michael turned the stereo on, refusing to engage in the conversation any longer, and he rubbed his forehead in an effort to focus his concentration. He had survived battles, wars, countless dangerous missions, and even capture on several occasions, so surely he could survive one trip to the grocery store with Maria.

He made a quick stop at the landfill to unload the junk and left the back seat folded down, figuring he was going to need the additional space since her list was as long as his right arm. He slammed the back door before walking around to get back in the truck and head for the city; he already knew he wasn't going to be fortunate enough to make a stop at the small grocery store in the little town he normally went to when he had no other choice but to stock up on food.

Maria looked around in interest when they entered the city limits of Los Angeles, taking in the sights that it had to offer. She glanced at her silent companion when she felt the tension settling over him as he searched for a parking spot in front of the large shopping center. It was early afternoon, but there was activity everywhere; the parking lot was packed with vehicles, and people were on the move, hurrying between the various stores and their cars.

Michael spotted a car backing out near the front of the store and he ignored the woman patiently waiting ahead of him, swerving around her and pulling into the space before the other driver had completely vacated the spot. "We'll get the clothes first," Michael said as he opened his door and lowered his left foot to the ground.

"You just cut that woman off, Michael!"

He refused to argue with her and continued into the department store, unconcerned with the rightful ownership of the parking spot. Possession was nine-tenths of the law… well, he was now in possession of it, so that meant it belonged to him.

"This'll go much faster if you get your ass in gear," he shouted over his shoulder.

Maria hurried after him, shaking her head at his rude behavior. He was in the process of mapping out the store when she caught up with him, his military-trained mind planning out the best approach to find all of the items she needed in the least amount of time.

"Here's what we're gonna do…"

Maria nodded dutifully while he expounded on the best plan of attack and then chose her own direction, pushing the cart past him as she headed toward the section of the store that housed the health and beauty department. He followed after her just like she had known he would, grumbling under his breath about the amount of time it was taking her to pick out the items she wanted.

"How hard can this possibly be?" he finally yelled, annoyed by the people milling around the aisles, crowding him and making him feel claustrophobic. "It's deodorant, for God's sake!"

Maria continued to browse through the available selections, unconcerned with his irritated tone or his yelling. She laughed when the other people in the aisle scattered, hurrying to get away from the volatile man. "You're really too tense."

"Yeah? Well, a good, hard fuck would cure that."

"I don't think sex is your problem," she said as she finally found an acceptable brand of deodorant and dropped it in the cart.

"Sex isn't my problem… the _lack_ of sex is my problem." His hands tightened spasmodically around the cart as he pushed it after her when she moved further down the aisle. "Which wouldn't be a problem if you'd just - "

"We've already been over this," she reminded him as she dumped an armful of items into the cart. "I'm not having sex with you."

"Right, I forgot… same name, same face, but I lack the saintly quality that your Michael had."

The laughter was so unexpected that Maria nearly choked on it. "Saintly quality?" she repeated, certain that she had heard him wrong.

"Well, apparently he was perfect and a saint because I can't imagine what other reason there is for you to turn down my offer."

"Michael was far from being perfect or a saint; he had lots of faults, but he was amazing in spite of them. He actually worked to overcome his past…" Her gaze turned to him and she was once again stunned by the clash of similarities and differences between him and her Michael. "I'm sure it would've been easier for him if he hadn't chosen to do better and improve himself, but he did make that choice and he was a better man for it."

"Whatever. Just get the rest of the shit on this list so we can move on." His tone was disgruntled and his expression didn't invite further discussion.

Maria finished gathering up the necessary items in that area of the store before following him to the clothing department. She was surprised when he actually took an interest in the clothes, but as soon as he focused on undergarments that were made for seduction she rolled her eyes and went searching for comfort.

"What's wrong with this?" he muttered, holding up the latest garment she had rejected.

She shook her head at the teddy he was obviously partial to and tossed a couple of packs of functional undergarments into the cart, along with a pack of socks.

"Well? What's wrong with it?"

"Nothing, if I was interested in dressing like a slut."

Michael frowned at the barely-there teddy, intrigued by the revealing slits cut into the wispy fabric in the most interesting places. "I don't see what's wrong with it," he grumbled, hanging it back on the rack.

"You're not picking out my underwear, Michael; you won't be seeing it anyway."

The reminder only pissed him off and he followed her through the maze of clothes racks until she stopped to browse. His attention was soon drawn to the racks where the more daring clothing was on display and he wandered over to do some browsing of his own. _He had never been in a position where he had to shop for a woman, but this actually wasn't so bad_, he thought as he picked out a mini-skirt that was so short he wasn't sure it would actually cover anything and a tee shirt with a plunging neckline.

"I'm not wearing that, either."

"Look, I'm payin' for all this crap so I think I should have some say in what you buy."

"Then pick out something that was designed for comfort because I'm not wearing that." She should have expected him to focus on the shortest skirts and the sexiest underwear, but he had another think coming if he thought she was going to wear any of it.

"What the fuck's wrong with it?" Michael looked at the skirt, not understanding her objection to it. It was perfect, in his opinion.

"I'm not some little whore who's gonna parade around your house dressed like a hooker because I'm just waiting for you to bend me over the nearest piece of furniture."

Michael threw the clothes on the floor and stalked off, allowing Maria to finish shopping in peace and quiet. Nearly an hour later she dropped the last item in the cart and went to look for him. His childish reaction to being told no was something she was still getting used to; it was such a contrast to his usual behavior and she wondered how many people had seen this side of his personality. She had no doubt that plenty of people had been witness to his hostility, anger, and bad temper, but she couldn't imagine that many had seen the petulant side he had exhibited several times since she had met him.


	15. Chapter 14

**Part 14**

She walked through most of the large store before she found him, stretched out on a bench in the gardening section, asleep. A tall, skinny kid, probably seventeen or eighteen years old, was lurking close by and Maria had a feeling that he had been on the receiving end of Michael's temper.

"You here to get him?" he asked nervously.

"Yeah." She smiled when the kid let out a relieved breath. "Was he rude?"

"Well, I tried to tell him he couldn't just sleep on the merchandise and he threatened to remove my balls and shove them down my throat, so yeah, I'd say he was rude."

Maria bit her lip and refrained from commenting when the kid's voice squeaked, knowing he was doing his best to sound indignant. "Why don't you go back to whatever you were doing and I'll get him out of your department, okay?"

"No problem!"

She really thought about finding a case that housed cold bottled water and just dousing him with it, but they still had to go grocery shopping and he was already in a bad mood, so she settled for moving behind the bench and giving it a hard shove. She stepped back and leaned on the cart when he jerked upright and grabbed the back of the bench to keep from falling on the floor.

_I should've known_, he thought as his gaze quickly zeroed in on Maria. "What the fuck do you want now?"

Maria smiled sweetly. "Your credit card."

"Does that mean you're finally done? We can go now?"

"Yes, we can go… grocery shopping."

"Whatever, let's just go."

Maria followed him to the registers, doing her best to ignore his grumbling. She had a feeling it wasn't going to get any better at the grocery store. More than an hour later, she had proof that she was right; he had made snide comments about everything, insulted and offended numerous shoppers, and he was currently eating donuts out of a package that he had opened without paying for it.

She was discussing the freshness of the different types of fish displayed in the seafood case with one of the employees while Michael leaned on the cart and stuffed his face with junk food.

"I'm not eatin' fish," he announced after she made her selection and the man behind the counter moved to wrap the fish in heavy white paper.

"Fish is good for you, and you will eat it." She shook her head and wrinkled her nose in disgust when he turned to look at her, saluting her with the donut in his hand before sticking his tongue in the center and wiggling it around suggestively. "Are you aware of how juvenile that is? No woman is going to find that the slightest bit erotic."

He shrugged carelessly.

"Michael Guerin!"

Maria cringed when a tall, slender brunette slinked up to him and quickly struck up a conversation. It was obvious by the expression on his face that he didn't have the slightest idea who she was, but he was playing right along and the woman was totally buying his act. She stalked over to the cart and slapped the wrapped fish down right in front of him.

"Maria!" he yelled, irritated at the interruption. "What the fuck?"

Maria tried to control her irritation with him and the situation, but it was no small task. _A woman he had fucked, what a big surprise. Not that it was any of her business. Nope, not at all._ "That takes care of all the meat; we need to move on to the fresh fruits and vegetables."

"I'm busy," Michael snarled. He turned back to the other woman and sized her up. _Nope, didn't ring a bell. Oh, well, no problem; he'd fuck her a second time. A man had needs and if that Maria girl wasn't gonna help him out in that area, it wasn't like there was a shortage of hot chicks… any chick would do._

Unaware of Michael's uncharitable thoughts about her, the poor girl hesitated before speaking. "I'm sorry," the woman said, her gaze bouncing between them. "You're - "

"Nobody," Michael interrupted, shoving Maria away. "She's nobody important… she's just uh… she's a…" He glanced at the cart as he searched for an explanation for her presence. "Nutritionist. Yep, nobody important."

"Uh-huh," the woman said, sounding uncertain. "Well, you have my number; don't lose it in the wash next time, okay?"

He grinned like a fool and his gaze slid over her appreciatively as she turned to walk away. He looked down at the tiny slip of paper she had placed in his hand. "I won't, Tina."

"I won't, Tina," Maria mocked, drawing his attention.

"Jealous?" he taunted as he crumpled up the piece of paper and threw it on the floor.

"Of what? My Michael wouldn't have given a cheap tramp like that the time of day." She snorted. "That white trash makes Courtney look a winner, and you have no idea how much work that takes. You don't even know who she was, do you?"

"Who cares? She remembers me; that's all that matters." Michael thumped his chest. _Ooooh, yeah, she remembered him! He was a sex god; women would kill to get in his pants. He was THAT good._

Maria couldn't help feeling nauseous as she watched him parading around like a rooster. _How could that… that copy of her Michael be so repulsive? He couldn't possibly share the same DNA as her Michael, it just was not possible. There was something off, here! _"You're disgusting. Now, come on, we need to get the fresh produce before we leave."

"I need a bag of chips." He yawned in disinterest and turned back in the direction they had already covered to retrieve a bag of chips. "I'll catch up in a minute."

Maria rolled her eyes and looked over her list, frowning when she noticed that they hadn't picked up salad dressing, trying her best to forget the pig accompanying her. She checked to make sure they weren't missing any other items before walking back a couple of aisles and scanning over the variety of flavors available. She was reaching for two separate kinds when she noticed Tina standing at the opposite end of the aisle.

"Tina, right?" she asked as she neared the other woman.

The woman looked up, startled. "Oh, hi, you're Michael's… nutritionist, wasn't it?"

Maria was jumping for joy inside because Michael's weak explanation for her being with him provided her with the perfect revenge. "Yes, well, that is part of my job as his nurse."

Tina frowned. "His nurse? You don't look like a nurse."

"No, but he requested that everything remain as normal as possible for appearances' sake. He doesn't like to seem weak," she said, her voice low as if she were sharing the information in confidence.

Tina opened her eyes wide, interested. _Juicy gossip!_ "He's sick?"

Maria looked to her right and then to her left, as if she was watching for anyone who might be listening to her. She got close to the other woman and spoke in a low voice. "Normally, I wouldn't divulge this type of information regarding a client, but it seemed as though you had a past relationship… am I correct, or was I reading the situation wrong?"

Starting to get worried, Tina corrected Maria. "I wouldn't exactly call it a relationship; we just hooked up for a night."

Maria nodded and patted the other woman's arm in a consoling gesture. "Don't feel bad; I'm afraid there are simply too many women out there who have had one-night stands with him, and he didn't remember any of their names either. It surely would have made it easier to find them and let them know that they should definitely get tested."

Tina completely forgot that she had just been insulted when she heard the words _get tested_. "Tested? For what?"

Maria looked around under the guise of ensuring their privacy, once again. She felt like an actress on stage and she was starting to love that. She smiled inside at what she was about to reveal to the brainless girl. "Trichomoniasis," she whispered. _Thank God for Sex Ed class in high school._ "I'm afraid for Michael it may already be too late; in rare cases it causes impotence in men." _Okay, she had just thrown that in because he was being an asshole and she was getting tired of women coming up to him because they remembered how good he was between the sheets._ "It's important to get tested if you've had sex with him any time within the last two years."

Gasping, Tina grasped her shirt as she tried to not panic. _Oh, God, that son of a bitch had infected her! She was going to die, oh, God!_ She breathed deeply for a few seconds and asked the kind soul who was going against the medical rules to give her a chance to live. "Can you even say this stuff?" she whispered back.

Maria shook her head sadly to indicate that she shouldn't be revealing such _privileged_ information. "Would you rather not know? Technically, no, I'm not supposed to tell you any of this, but it's so important to get treatment if you've been exposed. Michael's in therapy for his… problem, but there's no guarantee that he'll recover from his infection."

Tina practically ran from the store and Maria walked back to the cart, dressing in hand. She was smiling widely. _She sooo deserved an Oscar for her performance!_ If she was lucky, Tina was a chatter-box and was going to blab "the truth" in any bar Michael used as his hunting ground when he was on the prowl. _Ha, let's see if he could get laid with that rumor going around,_ Maria thought with glee. She didn't feel guilty in the least. Michael had used women like Kleenex for years, and she, Maria DeLuca, was going to avenge the fairer sex.

Michael was already there, unaware of Maria's most recent stunt. He was leaning on the cart and eating from an open bag of potato chips. "You are aware that grocery stores do not appreciate it when people do that."

"Like I fuckin' care. I'm gonna pay for it anyway, so what's the big deal when I eat it?"

"Your behavior is despicable." _Says the woman who just told a horrible lie about him_, she thought with a wide grin. She really didn't feel bad about it though, not even a little; he was a bastard and he deserved it.

"How come you look like you know somethin' I don't?"

"I have no idea what you're talking about," Maria said as she headed down the last aisle.

"Uh-huh," he muttered, his tone disbelieving. He pushed the cart along behind her, and shook his head when she began debating between iceberg, romaine, and some other kind of lettuce. "I'm not eatin' that. I already told you I don't eat any of this crap."

"It won't kill you to eat healthy for a change, Michael."

"Not eatin' it," Michael replied, full of self-confidence. Maria might be hot, but no hot girl was going to force him to abandon the food he loved so he could eat fish and salads.

She chose to ignore him and selected several different varieties of bell peppers, fresh jalapenos, onions, and tomatoes. She collected a large bag of potatoes and studied the squash before deciding she didn't like the way it looked. She reached for a cucumber, checking the skin as she squeezed it to make sure it was firm, and she froze when she felt his eyes on her. She knew what was coming, she just knew he wouldn't be able to resist.

"I'm bigger," he announced proudly.

She rolled her eyes to the heavens above. _Disgusting, he was just disgusting._ "God, do you think you could muzzle your filthy mouth for five minutes?"

"Doubtful." He shuffled along behind her when she started bagging different fruits and he frowned when she reached for a kiwi. "I'm not payin' for that," he denied.

"Have you ever tried it?" Maria asked.

"It's got fuckin' hair all over it!" Michael protested vehemently. _Who would eat fruit with hair on it, for God's sake?_

"We're buying it," she snapped, shoving half a dozen in a plastic bag and placing it in the cart. She went after the peaches next just because he had pissed her off. "I suppose you don't eat these either."

"They're furry." _What was she going to suggest he add to his diet next? Sushi?_

"Good, we're getting half a dozen of them too," Maria decided, unmoved by Michael's protestations.

An unsure voice interrupted them. "Um, excuse me… ma'am, sir?"

They both turned to look at the clerk who had approached them, shouting "What?" at the same time.

Swallowing audibly, the poor man tried to appear firm. _Never show your fear, right?_ "You're causing a scene and it's making some of the customers uncomfortable. I'm gonna have to ask you to - "

"We're leaving," Maria said, grabbing Michael's arm and pushing him towards the cart before he could get into an argument with the clerk. "We've been in here for over two hours; do you really wanna have to come back and do this again?"

That question succeeded in reining Michael in before he could do anything else that would result in them getting kicked out of the grocery store without making a purchase; he wasn't interested in repeating this experience any time soon.


	16. Chapter 15

**Part 15**

Michael pulled the truck into the garage and sat there for a moment before he turned the key and cut power to the engine. He had to get out for a while, had to get away from this woman and her constant chatter.

"I'm goin' out," he said suddenly.

"Where're we going?" Maria asked, deliberately misunderstanding him. He had been silent since they had made their way out of L.A. and it was beginning to grate on her nerves.

"_We_ aren't goin' anywhere. You had to have all this shit so do somethin' with it." He got out and slammed the door before stalking around the front of the truck, unlocking the door that went inside the house before going over to the motorcycle.

"Where're you going?" Maria wondered why she was even asking such an absurd question. She was starting to get to know this Michael, and the man had sex on the mind 24/7.

"Someplace where I can get laid."

_Bingo,_ Maria thought unhappily.

Michael glanced at her as he checked his pockets for the keys to the motorcycle. "Preferably by a woman who can use her mouth for somethin' besides talkin' all the fuckin' time."

_That son of a… pod!_ She watched him, eyes narrowed. He pissed her off even more than HER Michael had and she hadn't thought that anyone could achieve that goal. "I guess you should hurry then; I'd imagine the hookers should be making their way to the street corners pretty soon."

He snorted derisively and watched her as she walked around to open the back to get to their purchases. "I don't do hookers."

_Ha, she wouldn't bet her life on that!_ "No? Why? Can't find one willing to work with what you've got to offer? I'm sure with enough money a hooker would be willing to overlook any inadequacies you have."

He stalked to the back of the vehicle to face her and she shoved an armful of sacks into his arms. "There is nothin' inadequate about my dick!" he shouted.

"Oh." She pretended to ponder that for a moment before nodding and walking into the house. "So, it's performance anxiety then," she guessed.

"What?" He hurried after her and unloaded the bags on the island in the center of the kitchen. He folded his arms across his chest and glared at her where she stood across from him. "Performance anxiety?"

"You know..." She held her right hand up, pinky finger extended toward the ceiling and as he watched she slowly lowered it. "You're all into it and then… nothing."

Michael hurried after her when she walked back out into the garage. "I do not have a problem maintaining a fuckin' erection!" _You don't have a problem when she's around,_ his mind taunted. _Any other woman… you know what's gonna happen._

"Hmm, so if it's not a problem with size or your ability to…" she smirked, "keep an erection, it must be something else." She sighed and shook her head as she piled more sacks into his arms before gathering up an armful for herself and going back inside. "Yeah, that only leaves one thing."

His jaw ached from grinding his back teeth together. "What are you talkin' about now?" he snapped as he unloaded the groceries on the counter.

Maria leaned back against the refrigerator for a few moments. "Endurance, stamina, the ability to - "

"Wait just a fuckin' minute! Are you suggesting that I shoot my load too quick?" he shouted, his face flushing red with anger.

She shrugged. "I'm just saying that women tend to prefer a man who can make it to the finish line."

"I don't have any of those problems," he denied, following her out to the truck for more groceries.

"You sure about that?" _Okay, her Michael had never had that problem, but that didn't mean that this Michael couldn't have it. Oh, who was she fooling? All those women sniffing around him, the way he was constantly parading around and bragging about his sexual exploits; they were all indicators that he was as good as her Michael in bed. Or out of bed… or outdoors… or… damn it, no more thinking about Michael and sex. It was only gonna cause problems. _It wasn't any of her business, but she wasn't able to focus on the rational part of her brain.

"I've never left a woman unsatisfied and I've got the stamina of a fuckin' racehorse," he muttered as he pulled the bags closest to the front out and handed them to her.

Maria burst out laughing. _A race horse? Did Michael even know that this wasn't the best comparison he could've come up with? Nope, he didn't know. Stupid alien._ "Considering a horse race lasts for all of two minutes, I think I would've used a different analogy. Seriously, Michael, if you're bragging about holding out for two whole minutes…"

Michael used every trick he had learned in his job to avoid strangling her. She was insulting him on purpose. He knew it, and he was still there, playing her little game. Well, no more; he had a mission and he didn't want to be late. "What do you want? A list of references?"

"Oh, I'd love to see you put that list together." She shut the back door with her left shoulder and followed him back into the house. "Tell you what, I won't say another derogatory word about your pathetic taste in women or your ability to satisfy them if you can tell me the name of the woman who gave you her phone number at the store."

"The woman at the store?" He frantically searched his mind, trying to remember who she was talking about.

Maria laughed. "See, you've already forgotten her."

Michael shot a dark glare in her direction. "Just give me a minute, would you? I just need to remember what she looked like; there were a lot of fuckable women out today."

Maria rolled her eyes. "The one who came up to you while you were stuffing your face with chocolate donuts… donuts that I know you didn't pay for."

He shrugged carelessly, his mind desperately trying to identify the woman so he could get Maria off of his back. "I saw no reason to pay for an empty box."

"_You_ emptied it!"

Michael waved his hand, unconcerned with his theft. "Not the point."

"How is that - " She shook her head. "You're right, that's not the point. The point is you have no idea what her name is."

_So? He was a guy, not some hero out of a Harlequin romance novel, for God's sake._ He'd bet she even read that kind of shit. "Actually, the point is that I don't give a fuck what their names are. I'm not gonna remember them later, and before you lecture me on that, they know the score goin' in. I don't make false promises and I don't waste my time tellin' 'em lies just to get between their legs. If any woman I'm interested in fuckin' can't deal with the rules, it's her loss; I can always find another hot piece of ass."

Not for the first time, Maria wondered if her Michael would have eventually turned out like this man, had he not been raised with Max and Isabel, and if he had never met her. It was so difficult to picture the guy who had learned to dance for her spouting these words. She didn't want to think that he could have turned out this way. Her Michael was special, he had something… more, something this Michael was lacking. A real soul, maybe. "Have you ever cared about any woman you've ever had sex with?"

"What?" He wasn't paying attention to her question; he was trying to figure out how she had managed to get him to carry most of the groceries into the house when his intention had been to leave without so much as lifting a single sack.

Gritting her teeth, Maria repeated her question. "I asked if you've ever cared about any woman you've ever had sex with?"

"Don't need to care about 'em to fuck 'em," he said as he pulled his keys out of his pocket and crossed the room on his way to the garage. "Don't wait up."

"Damn it," Maria muttered when she heard the motorcycle engine roar to life. For just a moment she thought she had sidetracked him enough that he was going to forget his intentions to go looking for a woman to have sex with. She should've known better - the man had a one-track mind and right now his only concern was getting laid.

_What was she going to do if he brought the tramp home with him?_ she wondered as she put the groceries away. Knowing Michael he'd probably expect her to get up and make breakfast for him and whatever piece of slutty trash he brought home.

_No,_ she decided, _he wouldn't bring women to his home;_ there was no evidence that anyone had ever been there. Besides, bringing a woman to his home would send the wrong message; it might make them think that he was interested in prolonging their… arrangement, and considering his aversion to anything resembling relationships, he wouldn't take that risk.

She put the groceries away before carrying the rest of the sacks into the living room and dropping them on the couch. _Where was she going to put her clothes?_ She briefly considered hanging them in the closet in Michael's bedroom but just as quickly discarded that idea. As much as she enjoyed pissing him off on a constant basis - and she was certain that encroaching on his closet space would do just that - she needed her own space for her things.

She walked through the house until she reached the room that housed his home office. Standing inside the room she looked around for several minutes before walking back out into the living room, mentally comparing the space. In the office once more, her gaze traveled over the walls and she crossed the floor to open the door that she hadn't noticed before.

_A walk-in closet,_ she mused. It wasn't as large as the one in the master bedroom, but it was more than adequate... and even better than that, it was empty. She stepped back out and looked around the room with renewed interest as she considered the possibilities.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Michael entered the bar he frequented when he had time off, brushing the dust from the road off of his jacket before shrugging out of it. He maneuvered his way through the crowd and found an empty spot at one end of the bar, snarling at the man sitting on the next stool when he turned and started to make drunkenly polite conversation. The drunk stumbled off in search of someone who would listen to him and Michael placed his jacket on the stool to prevent anyone else from sitting next to him.

"Well, you're as pleasant as always," Jordan said as she placed a bottle of his beer on the counter in front of him. She studied him carefully, feeling the tension that was radiating off of him, and she shook her head. "Do not start a fight in here, Guerin."

"Who said I was gonna start a fight?" he muttered darkly. _That Maria girl was really something. How had his double put up with her? Now, that was a mystery._

"You're strung too tight and you haven't even looked at a single woman since you walked in; put those two together and it means you're in here looking for a fight. The last time that happened it took several days to fix all the damage you did."

He wasn't in the mood to be analyzed. "I paid for everything, didn't I?"

Jordan snorted. "You broke everything in the first place, and the only reason you paid for the repairs is because I told you I'd stop feeding you if you didn't."

He shrugged, not bothering to deny it. His dark eyes traced over her features, noticing, probably for the first time, that she had green eyes. "How come we never hooked up?"

Jordan smiled. "Besides the fact that I'm not into men?"

"Well, obviously besides that." He grinned unrepentantly. "I could change your religion in one night, Jordan."

She sized him up, her expression pensive. "You think you're that good?"

"I _know_ I'm that good," he corrected her.

Jordan shook her head. _Men and their vanity._ "I'd hate to be the one responsible for bruising your ego because no matter how good you are, you're not about to change my preferences. I've played both sides of the fence; you wouldn't be the first man I've ever fucked."

"Maybe not, but I'd sure as fuck be the best thing you've ever had between your legs," he said as he tipped his bottle back to finish his beer.

Jordan poured herself a shot and tossed it back as she contemplated his arrogant offer; she was single again since her ex had dumped her for a truck driver who had been just passing through and she hadn't been laid in a couple of weeks. She wasn't interested in anything with strings and she knew he would never want a relationship of any kind or the emotional attachment that went with it.

"Tell ya what," she said as she poured another shot for herself, "if I don't get a better offer before closing, you're on."

Michael hid his surprise at her response and saluted her with the bottle in his right hand. "You won't regret it," he said smugly.

"Not if all the stories I've heard are true," she said with a wink. "You want your usual for dinner?"

"Yeah, and tell Cal to double the order; I feel like I haven't eaten in a week." His mood lightened as he watched her walk away and he felt anticipation curling low in his belly. _He was getting laid tonight!_ He didn't know if it was the combination of blond hair and green eyes or something else and he didn't care - he was getting laid and that was the only thing that mattered.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Michael unlocked the door and entered the dark house, immediately feeling the difference in the atmosphere. The house was normally silent and felt empty, but there were subtle sounds that indicated the presence of another person. He dropped his keys and wallet on the counter in the kitchen before looking through the cabinets and the refrigerator. He had never seen so much real food in his house before; he just hoped Maria knew how to cook all of it.

For the first time in more than a week he felt like he had some control over his life. When he had left the house earlier he had been ready to explode; he had been pissed off, sexually frustrated, and ready to fly into a violent rage at the slightest provocation. Whatever had been causing the mental/physical block had taken the night off and his dick had behaved normally for the evening.

He was exhausted and all he wanted was a hot shower and a few hours of uninterrupted sleep. All of the frustration and aggression that had been building to unmanageable proportions was back under control and all it had taken to achieve that was some very energetic fucking.

He pulled his tee shirt off over his head, wincing when it pulled against his chest. _Body shots had a tendency to leave a sticky mess behind,_ he thought as he made his way to his bedroom so he could wash it off.

He glanced at the shadowed lump on the couch as he walked through the living room. He heard her breathing pattern change and he knew she was awake, but instead of rubbing her nose in the knowledge that he had gotten laid he moved on to his room and shut the door behind him.

_He had succeeded in his mission to get laid,_ Maria thought as she glanced at the clock on the face of the stereo system. It was after three in the morning and he had the audacity to come home without bothering to shower first. Even from across the room he reeked of alcohol and sex, and in that moment she hated him.

She pulled the blanket tighter around her and shoved the thought of Michael with another woman out of her head. She wasn't going to think about it because it was only going to make her angry and she needed to keep her thoughts focused.

Sleep didn't come easily, and when it did finally welcome her into its dark embrace it was anything but restful.

**xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Michael came in early the next morning after doing his exercises and making his five-mile run. He stripped his tank top off and mopped the sweat off of his face as he made his way through the living room on his way to the shower. He felt ridiculously good as he walked through his bedroom door but he felt his good mood begin to evaporate when he realized that the bathroom door was shut.

He could hear the shower running and he opened the door without hesitation. "You've got five minutes to finish up or we're showerin' together," he shouted.

Exactly five minutes later the door opened and she breezed by him wrapped in one of his big, fluffy bath towels. "I see you haven't been able to wash the stench of whore off of yourself yet," she muttered on her way out of his bedroom.

"Why do you have to be such a bitch about my fuckin' sex life?" He followed her into the living room. "I don't wanna hear one more word about what I do or who I do it with, do you understand? Just because you're sexually frustrated, don't take it out on me!" he snapped. "I offered and you refused, so if you're all tense and bitchy because you're not getting laid that's not my fault and I don't deserve to be punished for it."

_Oh, someone was touchy this morning_, Maria thought, realizing she had hit a nerve. "Did you pay for sex last night?"

"No," he denied, "I did not pay for sex last night."

"Maybe you should've because if you spent the night having sex you shouldn't be this easy to provoke so soon after. Which leads me to believe that it wasn't quite as good as you've made yourself think it was," Maria said, crossing her arms over her chest and watching him. _Ooooh, yeah, she was right, he was bragging to make up for an unsatisfactory experience. Now that was hilarious,_ she thought as a big smile illuminated her face.

"Fuck off." He stalked back into his bedroom and slammed the door, stripping the remainder of his clothes off and getting into the shower. _Okay,_ he admitted as he turned the water on and stepped under the spray, _he hadn't exactly changed Jordan's religion the night before and chances were good that he probably wouldn't get another shot at it after his less-than-stellar performance._ But, he had been trying to focus on the positive side of things and just enjoy the fact that he had gotten laid. He should've known that Maria was gonna say something and ruin it for him.

Jordan had thankfully had enough tequila in her by closing time that she hadn't exactly laughed in his face afterwards, but that might have been preferable to her informing him that she was planning to stick with women from now on. It had been easier to simply console himself with the fact that he had gotten laid at all before Maria had put her two cents in. Before she had added her opinion, he was content to ignore the other facts; Jordan hadn't been drunk enough to confuse good and bad sex, she wasn't a die-hard lesbian (although she was probably rethinking her stand on that choice now), and while he had gotten off, eventually anyway, he hadn't been able to do the same for her.

He got out of the shower and dried off. "You're stressin' over nothin'," he muttered to his reflection in the mirror over the sink. "You knew goin' in that Jordan prefers chicks anyway and it was your first time…" he snorted at that. "It's the first time you've had sex in a while and considerin' all the suggestions Maria put in your head before you left the house yesterday you still got laid and you got off." He pointed at his reflection. "That is all that matters. Besides, you got it up and you kept it up…" He glanced down at his dick. "And that is all you get credit for," he snapped. "I don't know what the fuck you were doin'; were you completely blind last night? You do realize it's your job to find and hit a woman's G-spot, right? So, on top of Maria's insults regarding our performance, fuckin' a lesbian - because, yes, that's what we've come to - you have to go and ruin it by not getting Jordan off. You do realize that there is not enough alcohol in the world for her to forget that pathetic display of sexual prowess, don't you?"

He shook his head and turned his attention back to shaving. "The fault for last night can be placed in several different places, but just so you know, I take no responsibility for it. It's your fault for not payin' attention, Jordan's fault for bein' a lesbian, and Maria's fault for all that bullshit she was spoutin' yesterday." He wiped the excess shaving cream off of his face and stared at his reflection for a long minute. "All of it's her fault," he said slowly. "Shit's been goin' wrong ever since she showed up." He ignored that worrisome little voice in the back of his mind, reminding him that this problem he'd been having had started before her arrival. "Yep, it's all her fault. But, I'm not lettin' you off the hook," he muttered, glancing at his dick once more. "For whatever reason, you've become obsessed with her and you're not getting the message that she's not the slightest bit interested in you. Okay, that's not true, but she's in denial, and until that changes you're not gonna be seein' any action on that front."

Michael crossed his bedroom to pull a set of clothes out of the closet and toss them on the bed. "We're not gonna think about last night except in the context that we got laid; the rest of it is unimportant, and as such, is not worth thinkin' about." He pulled on a pair of tan cargo pants and picked the tee shirt up, carrying it with him to the kitchen.

The scent of breakfast food cooking had his mouth watering and his stomach grumbling and he decided to be generous and not pick a fight since she was finally cooking. Not to mention there was no telling what she'd do to the food if they got into a fight while she was cooking.


	17. Chapter 16

**Part 16**

Maria knew making the foods her Michael enjoyed was a risk; the Michael she was stuck with in this universe might not like the same things. He certainly didn't act the same or treat her the same way, but she knew from watching him that he liked to eat so it was one risk she was willing to take.

She slid the last batch of bacon onto a paper towel to drain the excess grease and washed the frying pan before setting it aside to finish chopping the fresh vegetables for the omelets. Red and green peppers, onions, tomatoes, and fresh jalapenos were sliced and diced, and then sautéed before being set aside while she cracked the eggs into two separate bowls. She reached for the bottle of tabasco sauce she had picked up the day before and she paused as she stared at it. _How many variations had she tried before she had finally gotten the amount just right?_ she wondered. Michael had teased her through every single success and failure as she had learned how to cook foods to suit his hybrid preferences.

Her Michael had been a constant in her life; at work, at school, and everywhere in between. He had liked to cook for her on occasion, trying out new recipes and adding his own twist to them. Her mind drifted back to the last time he had cooked for her, making an attempt to recreate some exotic recipe he had discovered…

_"C'mon, Michael, just let me see what you're making," she begged, trying to get around him when he shifted to block her view yet again._

_"Stop bein' so nosy," he muttered, nudging her back away from the stove. His tone was teasing as he prevented her from seeing what he was doing and he knew that as much as she liked surprises she hated the suspenseful waiting game. _

_He was putting the finishing touches on the dish when her arms had slid around his waist, sliding under the open panels of his shirt. "Michael, let me see what you're making."_

_"Go any further with that hand and we're gonna be heatin' this up in the microwave and eatin' it later," he warned when her right thumb brushed over the snap on his jeans in an attempt to distract him. He smirked when he felt her breath gust warmly against his back as she conceded his point and her hands settled on his sides._

_"You're being mean," she complained._

_He reached for a fork and filled it with food from the pot before bumping her with his left hip and motioning for her to back up. "Here, taste."_

_Maria kept her eyes locked on his as she accepted the forkful of food he held out to her, chewing thoughtfully as she tried to identify it. It was good… hot and spicy, but the flavors underlying the spices burst to life on her tongue and her eyes widened in surprise. "That's really good, what is it?"_

_"Chicken and sausage jambalaya; it's one of those Cajun/Creole recipes. You really like it? It's not too spicy or hot?"_

_"Huh-uh, it's really good."_

"You gonna stand there and stare at that all day or you gonna finish makin' breakfast?"

Maria was startled out of her thoughts when her obnoxious host spoke up, interrupting the pleasant memory and completely spoiling the moment for her. "Are you ready to eat?" she asked.

Michael frowned at her tone; there was no heat, no fire there, and that was unusual. As a rule everything she said was laced with passion in some form, but this was different. He pulled one of the stools out from under the far end of the island, sitting on it and hooking his bare feet on the bottom rung as he watched her. "What're you mixin' in the eggs?"

She looked at him when he spoke in a civil manner and held the bottle up so he could see it. "Tabasco sauce." She shrugged when he shook his head in confusion. "It's a hot sauce; you mix it in the eggs before putting them in the pan and it makes them hotter than they would be if you just sprinkled it on after they're cooked."

"Uh-huh, so why two bowls for eggs?"

"Because I've never acquired a taste for hot eggs; I enjoy hot and spicy with some foods, but not for breakfast."

_Okay, this wasn't so bad,_ he thought. _It had been at least two minutes and there hadn't been one derogatory remark about him or anything related to his sex life._ He reached across the counter to snatch a piece of bacon off of the plate but quickly jerked his hand back when she popped his knuckles with the spatula in her hand. "Ow! What the fuck?"

Maria moved the plate to the counter beside the stove before pouring the seasoned egg mixture into the frying pan. She ignored him when he fell silent, sulking at the end of the island as he stared at his stinging knuckles. Ten minutes later she slid a plate in front of him piled high with the stuffed omelet, homemade fried potatoes, bacon, and toast.

Michael's mouth watered as the smell wafted up to tease his nose and he cut into the omelet, pulling it apart to examine the contents. Ham, bacon, red and green peppers, onions, tomatoes, fresh jalapenos, and two… maybe three different kinds of cheese. He took the first bite and groaned as the flavors blended together and exploded on his tongue. "That's fuckin' good," he mumbled around his second bite, forgetting that he didn't want to encourage her in any way. "Hot, too." His eyes were actually watering just a little from the mix of spices and vegetables she had used. "How'd you get it so hot?"

"The trick is to leave the seeds in the jalapenos; they lose their potency if you don't use the seeds. They'll still be hot, but they're nowhere near as hot without them." She turned back to the stove to finish making her own breakfast, sighing when he picked his plate up and walked out of the room.

Within seconds she heard the television in the living room come on and she moved to the doorway to watch him settle down on the floor in front of the couch, the plate on the coffee table within easy reach. Her gaze slid to the dinner table set up on the other side of the kitchen and it hit her just how much she missed sitting down with her Michael for meals or just to talk.

How many times had she and her Michael been in different rooms doing their own thing, but still being together? She could be in the same room with this man and unless she provoked him in some way, he was practically unaware of her existence. She moved back to the stove and filled her own plate before moving to sit at the table, staring at the empty chair across from her. The feeling of utter loneliness washed over her and she missed her Michael so much that it was a physical ache.

She forced the thoughts to the back of her mind when she felt the depression trying to claw its way out of the depths of her being. She didn't have the answers yet, she didn't know how to undo what had been done, and until she had those things within her grasp she didn't dare let those feelings gain control.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"Somethin' I can do for you?" Michael asked when he felt her standing in the doorway, watching him. He had been out in the shop for hours, the radio propped up on one of the workbenches turned up loud while he worked on a couple of the motorcycles.

Maria crossed to the workbench where the radio sat and turned it down. "I want my own room," she stated, causing his hand to slip on the wrench he was turning.

"What?" He stared at her as if she had suddenly lost her mind. "This isn't a permanent living arrangement and I don't have a second bedroom."

Maria refused to back down. She needed her own bedroom for her sanity. "The office used to be a bedroom."

"No." Michael didn't even bother to develop on the subject. It was his house, HIS, and she wasn't gonna change the arrangement he had made ages ago.

"You don't even know what I was gonna suggest." She walked around looking at the various items he had stored in the shop. Her eyebrows lifted in interest when she spotted the furniture covered by several sheets of clear plastic.

"I'm not turnin' the office back into a bedroom." He shook his head. "You will not be stayin' that long."

"How am I supposed to figure out why the Granolith sent me here if you won't even sit down and talk to me?" she asked, turning away from the furniture to look at him.

"You said if you could do whatever it is you're here to do you can go back in time and prevent your version of me from jumpin' off a cliff."

"He did _not_ jump off of a cliff," Maria said angrily. "You make it sound like he did it intentionally."

_Good lord, the woman argued over every-damn-thing!_ "If it would make you shut up, _I'd_ go jump off a fuckin' cliff. Maybe your little time travel device sent you here to prevent you from altering events. Maybe bein' dead was the only way the poor bastard could get any peace an' quiet!" he yelled.

"Michael enjoyed talking to me," she insisted stubbornly, ignoring his hurtful taunts.

"Whatever. The point is, if you can change events, time, or other stuff, you'll go back before it happens, right?" he asked.

Maria nodded. _Yes, that was it exactly. Well, she was 99% sure that that was it_. "Theoretically, yes."

"Then why does it fuckin' matter how long it takes?"

"Because I wanna go back home where I can be with the man I love… the man who loves me," Maria exploded. She was sick of being here, treated like his maid.

Michael threw the wrench in his hand down, starting to get just as angry as Maria. "I want you to go home too, because then I wouldn't have to listen to you bitch an' moan about every goddamned thing! This is my fuckin' house; it's the one place where I have peace an' quiet, where I don't have to worry about anyone botherin' me, where I don't have anyone makin' demands on me! I am not rearranging my house just so you have your own space - "

"You haven't even stepped foot in the office since we've been here! What difference does it make if the desk and computer are out in the living room?" She wasn't going to cry in front of him; she wouldn't give him that satisfaction.

Michael brushed past her and motioned for her to follow him as he walked back towards the door. He shut everything down before stepping outside and pulling the sliding door shut before running the chain through the handgrips and locking the padlock. As soon as they walked inside the house he went into the kitchen and grabbed his wallet and keys.

"What're you doing?" Maria asked, confused.

"I'm goin' into town."

_God, she was getting sick and tired of his stupid tantrums!_ Maria thought, listening to the garage door close after he pulled out and drove off. She wondered where he was going this time as she threw herself down on the couch and considered what her next move should be.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Marcos Gutierrez looked up from the dossier he was reading through when his secretary knocked on his open door and announced his visitor. He motioned for her to show the man into the office and he leaned back in his chair when Michael Guerin stormed through the entrance and slammed the door behind him.

"I need a job, Marcos."

The man behind the desk remained silent, watching the ex-soldier prowl around the office like a caged animal. He hadn't expected to see Guerin for a couple more weeks at the very least, and he never would have expected to see the man so rattled. "You wanna tell me what's goin' on?"

"Last time I checked you weren't a fuckin' shrink, Marcos. You got a job, or not?"

"And the last time I checked, it was my name on the company letterhead and my reputation at risk if any of you guys fuck up a job." Marcos leaned forward in his chair, elbows braced on his desk as he considered the man's question. "What's got you so uptight?"

"You'd never believe me," he muttered. "Look, I just need somethin' that I can focus on for a few days."

Marcos regarded him thoughtfully as he leaned back in his chair once more. "You know what's at risk if you screw up, Guerin; I don't like havin' to clean up behind people."

Michael snorted. "I've never given less than a hundred percent to this job, Marcos, and you know that."

"Fair enough." He picked up the dossier he had been scanning and tossed it across the polished surface of the mahogany desk. "Alistair Covington owns a private company that contracts out to the Department of Defense; he has a three-day business trip scheduled to leave out tomorrow mornin'. He's on several hit lists and there was an attempted assassination on his life a month ago, so this needs to be handled with - "

"I'm not a rookie, Marcos; I know how to handle a security detail for a movin' target."

Marcos nodded. "Memorize everything in that dossier, gear up, and be at the address listed inside at oh-five-hundred; you'll be leavin' from a private airstrip an hour later."

"You won't regret it, Marcos."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Michael entered the house and looked around when he realized that it was silent… too silent. He moved from room to room, confirming what he already knew - she wasn't in the house. He walked outside and looked around, trained eyes scanning the desert in all directions in an effort to locate her. He moved to the end of the deck and climbed up on the top rail to see if he could see anything further out.

"Where the fuck are you?" he muttered under his breath.

He was just getting ready to climb back down when he heard the sound of a light snoring coming from behind him. He turned around and his gaze followed the deck where it was built along the side of the house and he shook his head when he saw the woman curled up in one of the loungers, sound asleep.

He jumped down off of the railing and smirked in satisfaction when the sound of his boots thumping against the deck startled her out of her sleep. "You tryin' to get heatstroke?" he asked caustically.

Maria didn't bother to respond, not willing to give him the fight he was obviously looking for. She had made sure she was in the shade and she hadn't been out there long enough to worry about sunburn or heatstroke. She ignored him, knowing he would eventually tire of trying to bait her and he would go inside and leave her alone.

She waited until he had gone inside before she got up and followed him, closing and locking the sliding doors behind her. She went into the kitchen to get something to drink and as she set an empty glass on the counter she noticed the folder lying on the counter under his wallet and keys. She filled her glass with ice and then removed the pitcher of lemonade from the refrigerator, pouring it over the ice as she eased the folder out from under his things.

After returning the pitcher to the refrigerator she carried her glass and the folder over to the dinner table and sat down, careful to keep the liquid a safe distance from the folder. She flipped the cover open, looking at the 8x10 color photo of a middle-aged man attached to the left side before turning her attention to the request for protection on top of the paperwork threaded onto the brads on the right side. She looked up when Michael entered the kitchen and paused in the doorway to see what she was doing.

"What's this?"

"That's none of your business," he muttered on his way to the refrigerator. He joined her a minute later with a beer in one hand and a bag of chips in the other. "You do realize that the big red CONFIDENTIAL stamp on the front of that folder means that you're not supposed to be lookin' at it, don't you?"

_As if that would stop her,_ she thought. _He sooo didn't know her!_ "Is this an assignment that you're doing?"

He dropped the chips on the table and slid the folder out from under her hands. "I'm gonna be gone for a few days."

_No, no, no, no, no!_ Maria tried to contain her panic at the thought of Michael leaving for his job. _The Granolith had sent her to this place on a crucial mission and the guy was throwing his life away for some stupid mission?_ "So, this _is_ your assignment. Michael, this is too dangerous… this guy's been targeted for assassination and his last bodyguard was killed protecting him. Not to mention the location of his business meetings… Lebanon? You do realize how dangerous that is, don't you?"

He snorted. "Dangerous for anyone who tries to get to Covington," he said, unconcerned.

Maria watched him; he didn't sound very worried. Maybe it wasn't a very dangerous mission, but… Lebanon? "They were talking about Lebanon on the news last night; it's a warzone over there and it would be stupid to just waltz in there like it's not dangerous." She shook her head when he shrugged and turned to the next page in the dossier, reading through the requirements for Covington's security detail. "You're so sure of yourself," she muttered, annoyed at the risk he was willing to take.

"I have no reason to question my abilities or think that I can't protect this man from any potential assassins." Michael took a quick look inside the folder, scanning over the details that he would need over the next few days. _Yeah, he was confident in his abilities, and even if there was a problem he could use his alien powers, just in case. He had an advantage that his adversaries didn't have._

Maria shook her head. _Being overconfident could be lethal._ "Why would you accept an assignment like this?"

Michael shoved a handful of chips in his mouth, chewing thoughtfully before washing them down with a drink of beer. "Why not?"

"Because you could be killed protecting a man whose company builds weapons of mass destruction."

"I don't really give a fuck what he does. My job's to keep him alive, not question his ethics." He flipped to the next page, studying the last assassination attempt that had been made on the man's life. "What's for dinner?" He looked at her when she just stared at him. "What? You'd deny a man what could potentially be his last meal?

"That's not funny," Maria snapped, irritated by his morbid sense of humor.

Michael ran his hands through his hair in an attempt to calm down and then took a deep breath. "Look, you deal with stress your way and I'll deal with it mine." _Discussion over._

Maria gaped at him. "This is how you deal with stress?"

"Well, it's a toss-up between shootin' somethin' or goin' out and getting laid." He closed the file and slouched down in his chair, crossing his arms over his chest as he watched her. "So, unless you're offerin' to get naked and help me work off some tension, I'm gonna go find somethin' to shoot."

"I'll go make dinner; I'd hate for your last meal to be less than memorable."

Michael chuckled and closed the dossier when she got up and started rummaging through the freezer, slamming things around to express the fury she was feeling. He went through the mental checklist of equipment that he needed to pack as he left the room to start getting his gear together.


	18. Chapter 17

**Part 17**

Maria stirred when she became aware of movement in the house early the next morning. She turned her head, squinting as she tried to read the clock on the stereo; why was he up and moving around at half past three in the morning? She sat up, rubbing her eyes when his shadowed form moved through the living room and into the kitchen.

"You should go back to sleep," he growled as he passed her on his way back to his bedroom.

She stood and followed him, stopping in the doorway and watching him as he paused at the foot of the bed to study the contents of his suitcase. After a moment he nodded and closed the lid, securing it before reaching for a black case and laying it on top. He opened it, checking over the weapons inside before closing it up again and securing it.

He turned when he felt her behind him. "Didn't I tell you to go back to sleep?"

"It's three-thirty in the morning; shouldn't you be getting as much rest as you can before you leave?" she asked when he disappeared into his closet.

"I'm leavin' in fifteen minutes," he answered, his tone neutral.

His mind was already on his mission, Maria could see it. "Fifteen minutes?" She shook her head. "You haven't had anything to eat, Michael."

"I don't eat before I start a new job." He stepped out of the closet, dressed in black slacks and a white long-sleeved button-down shirt. He flipped his collar up as he moved to stand in front of the mirror on the wall above his dresser, adjusting the ends of the black tie hanging around his neck. "No one will bother you out here and I'd appreciate it if you'd stay here and not go wanderin' off while I'm gone."

Maria blinked, trying to contain her tears as she listened to him talking about his absence. She was trying not to be worried but it was hard not to, knowing where he was going and what he was going there to do. "How long do you think you'll be gone?"

"A few days, maybe more." He shrugged as he finished knotting the tie, straightening it and turning his collar down before running a comb through his hair one more time. Once he was satisfied that everything was in order he crossed the room and pulled down a leather harness that he slipped over his arms and settled into place on his shoulders.

Maria swallowed hard as he removed the weapon, checking it before slamming the magazine into place and sliding the gun back into the holster. The last thing to go on was the suit jacket that matched the slacks he wore and she moved back out of his way when he grabbed his bags and prepared to leave. She followed him out to the garage and waited while he placed his things in the backseat.

She was reluctant to let him leave even though she knew she didn't have any choice in the matter. She had seen the news, listened to the reporters as they spoke of widespread violence and listed the numbers of daily casualties. No one in their right mind would just walk into that and she didn't want to see his photograph on the evening news as the next casualty in a war he wasn't involved in.

"Why can't someone else protect this guy?" she asked.

Michael shut the back door and leaned inside the open front door to start the engine before he turned to look at her. "Worried about me?"

"That would boost your ego, wouldn't it?" she grumbled. His ego really didn't need that.

He moved to stand on the bottom step, putting them at equal height. His dark eyes scanned over her features, easily detecting the fear she didn't want to admit having for him. Something that he didn't understand shifted inside of him in response to the expression in her eyes, but he quickly pushed it down and covered it up. "Since you're worried about me makin' it back alive you oughta take advantage of what could be your only opportunity to see what it's like to kiss me."

Maria watched him. There was a part inside of her that wanted to do just that; kiss him and never let him go. But she couldn't… she couldn't, and she knew it. "Just be careful. I know you think I'm crazy and you're not convinced that everything I've told you is really true, but…" Maria met his gaze in the shadowed interior of the garage, shaking her head at his arrogance as she reached up to run the palm of her hand over his tie. "Don't make me bury you a second time."

Michael stared at her for a full minute. "So, does that mean I don't get a kiss goodbye?"

She ignored his flippant tone. "If you would just be careful and come back in one piece I'd appreciate it, Michael."

He moved closer to her, crowding her against the doorframe and leaning in until their lips were less than a breath apart. "Tell ya what," he whispered huskily, "you can save it until I get back. A goodbye kiss is filled with poignancy and sadness…" he shook his head. "And that's not what I want from you." He leaned back and lifted his right hand to her cheek, cradling the soft skin in his rough palm. "No, when you kiss me - and you will," he said with a confident, wicked grin. "When you kiss me I want heat, passion, desire, and I want the time to savor every moment of it." He glanced at his wrist when the alarm on his watch started chiming. "Gotta go."

Maria watched him hurry to the truck and climb inside, gunning the engine before backing out and reaching up for the automatic garage door opener clipped to the sun visor. As soon as the garage door had lowered into place she went inside and closed the door, leaning back against it and sliding down to sit on the floor with her face in her hands.

She couldn't afford this kind of complication. She had been waiting for him to stop being such a cold bastard, but now she realized that if he started to act more like her Michael she was going to have a hard time keeping him at a distance. He would be a distraction she couldn't handle and it would be too easy to let herself fall into that trap.

No, she had to make sure he stayed at a distance and the best way to do that was to keep him off-balance and pissed off. "I can do that," she whispered raggedly. _Seriously, how hard could it be?_ His temper was like quicksilver and he was easier to provoke than anyone she had ever known. The question was, how?

_The second bedroom_, she thought suddenly. He had gotten angry when she had suggested turning the office into a bedroom… angry enough that he had taken off for several hours. The furniture was in the shop and he was going to be gone for several days at least. There was a lock on the door and he had the key, but there were ways around that.

She stood up, feeling a little bit better about things and she went back to the living room to lie back down. There was no need to get started until the sun came up and she was going to need her strength to move all that furniture. She stretched out and pulled the blanket up over herself, closing her eyes and hoping for the oblivion of a few hours of dreamless sleep.

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Michael was ready to spit nails as he stood next to the limo that was waiting to take him and the man under his protection to the airstrip where a private plane was scheduled to take them to Lebanon. They had encountered a slight snag when the client had stepped out of his house with briefcase, luggage, and his wife. Everything had been fine until the man had announced his intention to take his wife on the trip.

Alistair Covington was 47 years of age, balding, and had very severe features. The man wasn't interested in negotiating the terms of the trip; he had decided that his wife would be accompanying him and as far as he was concerned the issue was settled.

Protecting a moving target was a pain in the ass, but two? And a female at that? "Mr. Covington, sir, I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation - " Michael started.

Alistair Covington interrupted Michael rudely and effectively, his eyes cold and confident. "Mr. Guerin, as I understand it, you are here to provide security and to make sure that the clients make it back home alive. Correct?"

Michael bit the inside of his cheek in an attempt to contain his fury. Dealing with the clients was hell; he hated people. He was a protector, not a damned negotiator. "I just think you should consider the repercussions - "

"Is that, or is that not, your job?" Covington watched the bodyguard like a hawk. He was a leader, the kind of man who made the tough decisions and knew how to do his job no matter the circumstances. He remained calm because he knew in the end he would get what he wanted.

Michael took a deep, calming breath before nodding sharply in response to the man's question. "Of course, sir." He nodded at Shawn Taggart, the second bodyguard Marcos had assigned when Mr. Covington had decided at the last minute to allow his wife to tag along. He stood back as the couple was ushered into the back of the limo and then he slid in the front next to the driver, motioning for the man to depart.

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Eleanor Covington was two years younger than her husband with pleasant features and a quick smile; she carried herself with grace and dignity and she dressed with a sense of style and panache that most women half her age lacked.

She watched her husband as he paced around the lush interior of the cabin, his face expressing his displeasure with the person on the other end of the phone. She nodded when he disconnected the call and made a small motion with his head before heading for the cockpit.

Her gaze eventually turned to the young man charged with the responsibility of keeping them safe. "You don't approve of my decision to accompany my husband, do you?"

Michael's gaze lifted from the file in his hands when the client's wife spoke, her cultured voice carrying with ease. "No, I don't."

She was intrigued by his blunt honesty. "Why?"

"I've read your husband's file so I know you have children at home. Shouldn't you be at home with them?" Michael believed that a woman who had children shouldn't go into a warzone just to be with her husband. Maybe he reacted that way because he had never had a mother, and if he had, he wouldn't have wanted her to dump him off on caregivers just to travel the world. That was his opinion and the hell with her if she didn't like it.

She smiled. This man had a lot to learn about women. "Did you know that I've been married to Alistair for twenty-five years?"

"Like I said, I've read his file," Michael answered, not seeing where she was going with her questions.

Eleanor Covington accepted a glass of wine from the steward, savoring it. She closed her eyes, letting the white wine caress her taste buds. Turning the glass in her hands, admiring the wine's golden color, she spoke again, "Twenty-five years and I've been at that man's side for every one of them. We've had good times and bad and I've loved him through it all; I've never once doubted or questioned where my place was."

"Sounds a bit archaic to me." His gaze dropped back to the file in his hands. "Aren't you worried about settin' the women's movement back a few generations?"

She chuckled, taking no offense to his question. "No. I didn't lose myself by being with Alistair or by loving him all these years. The choice to marry, have children, support him in whatever he's doing, and to travel with him… those choices were all mine to make."

"And is it your choice to die with him if it comes to that?" He looked up when she remained silent and found himself pinned by her penetrating gray gaze.

"Have you ever been in love?" she asked. She shook her head when she saw the answer written across his face. "No, you haven't; you think it's a waste of time, an emotion that has no place in your life."

"I think it's a myth," he corrected. He had his opinion of this so-called 'love' thing, but he didn't feel like developing his theory at any length with his client's wife.

She shook her head, saddened by his answer, yet not surprised by it. But somehow, she felt compelled to try to explain what love was to this young man. There was something about him… she could read people, she had a gift for it, and she felt that Michael Guerin was different. "Then I am truly sorry for you, Mr. Guerin. However, if the right woman ever crosses your path and she makes it past that cynical wall you hide behind you'll understand what I'm talking about. When being with her, holding her, and loving her becomes something that you can't live without, when you realize that you would be willing to walk through the very fires of Hell just to hold her for one more moment…" She smiled. "When you realize that even the threat of death isn't enough to keep you from her side you'll know what love is."

"If you say so," Michael muttered, turning his attention to the folder once more.

Eleanor smiled at his statement; most of the time the men hired to protect them were dull, and they wouldn't even think of disputing anything that she or her husband said unless it was in direct conflict with their orders or it interfered with their ability to provide security for their clients.

She loved a challenge and she had no problem holding her own against anyone who wished to express their own opinions. She wasn't a woman who bowed to any man and she enjoyed engaging in good conversation and heated debates, so she welcomed any opinions the young man might wish to share.

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Maria glared at the padlock that stood between her and the furniture she wanted to get her hands on. She had been trying to pick the lock for the past hour without success and she couldn't understand why it wasn't unlocking. She sighed and shook her head as she crouched down to try again. Hair pins, paper clips, letter openers… she had seen a dozen different things used by detectives on television shows to pick locks, but not one of them had ever had this much trouble.

She leaned back and reshaped the paper clip yet again before inserting them into the keyhole at the bottom of the lock and wiggling them around. "Why aren't you working?" she grumbled as she twisted one of the paper clips viciously. "All you have to do is…" She fell silent when she heard the quiet _snick_ and a grin slowly spread over her face when the padlock opened. "Now that's more like it." She tugged on one end of the chain and it slithered through the metal handgrips to fall on the ground. Pushing it aside with her right foot, she dropped the padlock on top of the chain and pushed the door open.

The plastic covering the furniture was quickly removed and tossed aside and as Maria's hand settled on the headboard she frowned. _It was oak,_ she realized as her fingers traced over the intricate designs carved into the wood. _Not that there was anything wrong with oak… it just had a tendency to be heavy._ She pushed that thought aside for the moment and moved on to the next important issue - the bed. She tugged and pulled on the queen-size mattress for several minutes before she succeeded in pulling it out from behind the dresser so she could check it out.

Satisfied that the furniture was in good condition and most importantly - the mattress was clean - she closed the shop up and went back up to the house so she could start rearranging the living room to make room for the office furniture.

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Michael stepped down off of the bottom step as he exited the plane, slipping a pair of sunglasses on as he surveyed the tarmac. He sent Taggart to secure the limo, waiting for the _all-clear_ call before he stepped aside to let the Covington's leave the plane.

Once they were safely ensconced in the backseat with the other man he stood guard while the driver loaded their bags in the trunk. Most of the outer-lying areas showed signs of recent bombings and weary soldiers patrolled the streets. Adults and children ran through the ravaged neighborhoods searching the rubble for food, water… survivors? He scanned the faces of the people they passed, easily distinguishing between those who were used to the violence, the constant toll of death and destruction, and those who were new to the cruelty of war.

Was this what the streets of his home planet would look like? Were the weapons as crude, the people as ready to commit acts of unspeakable cruelty and murder for a cause they didn't even understand? The world he lived in was considered modern and civilized, but mankind had yet to step out of the dark ages when it came to the atrocities people were capable of committing against each other.

Maria had spoken of a coming war and the necessity of his participation in it, and he knew from experience that wars couldn't be fought without cost. They were paid for in blood and the only winners were those who ruled from their protected little rooms where they made rules, passed laws, and decided who lived and died. The winners were those in power, those who sent others out to do what they themselves wouldn't dare to do.

He was pulled from his thoughts when the driver slowed down and his hand tightened on the gun in his hand when he saw the little girl crossing in front of the limo. "Go around her," he snapped tersely.

"She is just a child," the driver said, smiling indulgently at the little girl and waving.

"You're getting paid to follow orders," Michael said, pressing the barrel of the gun to the man's temple. "Go around her. Now."

"You Americans, you worry too much."

Michael ignored the comment and settled back down in his seat, making a mental note to tell Marcos not to use the limo driver again. At the hotel he ordered Taggart to stay with the couple while he checked the room out to make sure it was safe.

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Maria dropped down on the couch, exhausted from wrestling the desk from the office to the living room. She didn't know why men seemed to be incapable of buying furniture that was attractive, functional, and easy to move.

The bed had been fairly easy to move once she had come up with the idea of using the plastic that had been covering it to make a path from the shop to the deck. The mattress and box spring had slid right along and hadn't given her one bit of trouble. She had no illusions about the rest of the furniture and she hadn't yet figured out how she was going to get it into the house.

It would've been much simpler if Michael had just agreed to moving the office furniture out; she would've been more than happy to help him switch the furniture out, but he was so damn stubborn that now she was doing it all by herself. Her Michael was stubborn, too stubborn for his own good most of the time, but he never would've put her in the position where she'd have to move furniture by herself.

Of course, it helped that in addition to Michael she'd had Kyle and Max too; there had never been a shortage of guys around when they had needed to move anything heavy. And most of the time she had been able to avoid the heavy lifting altogether, which had been fine with her. She sighed and stretched, switching her thoughts before she had the opportunity to get pulled too deep into them.

She sat up and reached for the remote, unable to put off checking the news any longer. The reporter was grim as he spoke of violence and casualties in the region but he wasn't reporting from inside the city so Maria took that as a good sign. She watched for a while longer before turning the television off and wandering into the kitchen for a late afternoon snack.


	19. Chapter 18

**Part 18  
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Michael watched from his position as Mr. Covington conducted his business without the slightest trace of emotion; he was cold, calculating, and knew not only how to get to the top, but how to stay there as well.

He stepped aside and held the door open when the meeting ended, carefully watching the businessmen and their lawyers as they filed out of the suite. Once they were gone he closed and locked the door behind them before resuming his position once more.

His gaze tracked Mrs. Covington as she joined her husband, silently taking a seat and waiting as he wrapped up a conference call. As the call came to an end Mr. Covington loosened his tie and took a deep breath before turning to his wife and reaching for her hand. In those moments the businessman relaxed and an entire conversation passed between the couple without a single word ever passing their lips.

Over the past two days Michael had witnessed different variations of the same scene and he didn't understand it. He had studied them, observing their behavior, cataloging their reactions to each other as well as outsiders, and he couldn't make it make sense.

They had been married for twenty-five years, they had five children, and they acted like they actually wanted the other person close by. They were both closing in on 50, they were average-looking, and he couldn't imagine that their feelings were based on lust or sexual attraction. _What could possibly make two people stay together for that long?_ His gaze traveled over them, taking in the physical changes that the passing years made to the human body; receding hairline, the wrinkles beginning to take up residence on features, the softening and expanding waistlines… _yeah, physical attraction was definitely not an option, and if physical attraction was out then there was no way it was about sexual attraction._

He shook his head in an attempt to dislodge the thoughts before they could go any further. He did not need the traumatizing image of old people having sex stuck in his head. He quickly cast about for a different subject and his mind immediately settled on Maria.

He wondered what she was doing all by herself; there really wasn't that much to do other than watch television or go for long walks. He supposed he could've given her a temporary password for the computer so she could've done some research or something. He doubted she would've been interested in anything in the shop - _except the furniture,_ he thought. He still couldn't believe she had demanded that she be given her own bedroom or that she had suggested moving his office into the living room.

His thoughts shifted to that moment in the garage when he had been so close to her that he had felt her heart pounding. He had been tempted to take the decision out of her hands, to kiss her so hard and deep that she would've had no choice but to kiss him back. He knew she would've fought it at first, clinging to the memory of her dead lover, but he was confident that she would've given in. The problem was that capitulation wasn't what he wanted from her. He had no idea why that was important to him; with any other woman he wouldn't care as long as he was getting laid. But, somehow, some way, for some reason he didn't understand, it had become essential that she make the first move.

_He wasn't the slightest bit concerned that she wouldn't make that crucial first move,_ he thought with an internal smirk. His only concern was how long it was gonna take before she made that move. There wasn't a doubt in his arrogant mind that it was only a matter of time before she gave it up. Maybe after three days alone, with nothing to do but sit around with her thoughts she'd be ready to accept the inevitable. _Hmm, three days to do nothing but sit around and think… three days to miss him being around… three days to think about him and work herself up into a major state of sexual frustration._

He had a feeling he was in for a surprise when he got home.

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Michael stared at the desk that was currently residing in one corner of the living room and he bit back the urge to start shouting. He was tired and suffering from jetlag so he wanted to make sure he wasn't seeing things that weren't there before he threw a fit. He closed his eyes, pinching the bridge of his nose and taking a deep breath before looking to verify what he already knew.

This was not what he'd had in mind when he had imagined having a surprise waiting for him when he got home. He'd been envisioning something more along the lines of Maria, naked in his bed… or in the bathtub… or hell, even naked and stretched out on the rug in front of the fireplace. Any of those possibilities worked for him and none of them would have made him feel like behaving in a violent manner.

He didn't know what she thought she was gonna accomplish with this little stunt but she would've had a better chance of accomplishing it with nudity. _Yeah,_ he thought, nodding to himself, _had she attempted to plead her case for putting the desk in the living room while lying on its polished surface completely naked he might have considered it. Okay, that was a lie – naked or not, she wasn't getting her way about this._

The desk was going back in the office first thing in the morning. If she thought moving it out into the living room was going to be the incentive he needed to convince him to haul the bedroom furniture inside she was sadly mistaken. If she wanted to sleep in an actual bed that badly she was just gonna have to get with the program and make that first move. He was willing to let her sleep in his bed with him, but only if she was willing to have sex with him. She would eventually get tired of sleeping on the couch and when that happened he would be ready to engage in negotiations. He had no intention of moving another bed into the house and losing that advantage.

He walked down the hall, too tired to worry about it until he'd had a decent nights' sleep. His attention was drawn to the room that had previously been his office when he noticed the light creeping out beneath the closed door. _What, was she sleeping on the floor in the empty room?_ Somehow he had figured she would take advantage of his absence and spend the nights in his bed.

He reached out to open the door, intending to check on her and shut the light off, but he wasn't prepared for the sight that greeted him. His dark eyes traveled over the furniture that had been set up and he felt his temper shifting into the red zone; she had done exactly what he had said they were _not_ going to do. She had obviously discovered the small room in the shop where he had stored all of the extra crap that the interior decorator had used to… what had she called it? Spruce the place up, that's what she had said about the pictures, colorful pillows, lamps, and the matching linens and curtains that she had stuck all over his house.

As soon as she had left he had packed all of the excess crap up and stored it in the shop, where he had intended to store it temporarily. The only reason he had even let her loose in his house in the first place was so he could get into her panties; it had definitely been worth it, but all of that stuff had to go just as soon as he had accomplished his goal.

He looked around the room; the bedside lamp was on, casting a soft yellow light over the bedspread. The furniture looked like it had been polished to a high shine, the solid oak gleaming under the light. He moved deeper into the room, wondering how she had managed to move the heavy furniture by herself. He opened the closet door, turning the interior light on and running his fingers over the hangers that held the clothes he had bought for her less than a week ago.

He stepped back and shut the door before crossing the room and picking up the photo that was propped up against the base of the lamp on the nightstand. His temper flared as his gaze moved over the picture of Maria with her friends, held securely in the arms of the man that she claimed was so much better than him.

"Michael?"

He dropped the photo back on the nightstand, not bothering to prop it up, and whirled to face Maria where she stood in the open doorway. "What the fuck is all this?" he snarled, angry for more reasons than just the office-to-bedroom transition that had occurred against his wishes.

Every ounce of relief that she felt at his presence, at seeing that he was safe and sound, dissipated at his furious tone. "First, just let me say that I'm glad that you made it back home alive. Second, this is exactly what it looks like. I couldn't just keep sleeping on the couch and living out of shopping bags."

He snapped, ready to explode. "There's a bed in my room - "

_That she had no intention of sleeping in._ "Uh-huh, which I am only welcome to use in exchange for having sex with you, and I hate to be the one to remind you, but that's not gonna happen. Now, maybe you thought that if I had to endure many more nights on the couch I'd eventually decide that having sex with you would be a fair exchange - "

"You act like fuckin' me would be a fate worse than death." Why was he hurt by his own words? He never mixed feelings where sex was concerned, but with this girl, he couldn't seem to help it.

Maria shook her head. The brief moment of happiness she had felt at seeing him back home and alive quickly vanished. "I'm not getting into this with you again, Michael. The only reason I'm here is to find a way to fix what happened so I can go home and - "

Fix the situation in her universe, fix him, and then dump his ass like a used tissue! A little voice in the back of his mind whispered that it was the same thing he had been doing to women for almost a decade, but he wasn't in any mood to hear it. "This shit's goin' back out to the shop in the mornin'; if I wasn't so fuckin' tired I'd haul it out there myself tonight. I don't know how the fuck you got it in here by yourself and I don't fuckin' care - it all goes back out tomorrow."

Fed up with his antics, Maria paused a moment to cover her eyes with her hands. "Why is it such a big deal for me to have this bedroom?"

"Because it's my fuckin' office!" he yelled. "It's my house, my office, and my life! I didn't ask for you to show up and turn my life upside down; before you showed up I was getting laid on a regular basis and enjoyin' my life! You come in and within minutes of meetin' you my entire life was thrown into chaos!"

"Your life?" she screamed. "You think your life was disrupted? You didn't lose anything by me being here." She held a hand up when he started to protest. "Fine, for whatever reason you've had a problem getting laid since I got here and you think that's my fault… fine! I don't care whether you're having sex on a regular basis or not; the only thing that matters to me is getting back home - "

"You've made it perfectly clear what your priority is!" Michael paced around the room, doing his best to control the urge to start throwing things. "And I do not have a problem getting laid; my problem is getting away because if I leave you alone in my house you rearrange the furniture and fuckin' move in like you think you belong here!"

"I have no illusions about belonging here," she snapped. "Why would I even want to belong here? With a man who treats women as sexual objects who have no reason for existing other than to please him… a man who is incapable of feeling anything for women beyond lust… a man who is disgustingly pleased that his longest relationship is with his right hand…" She shook her head, glaring at him. "I have somewhere that I belong and I have someone who I belong with… a man who knows how to treat a woman, a man who understands the meaning of the word relationship. Why would I ever be willing to lose what I have with him just to sleep with you?"

Michael's face turned red as he finally lost control of his temper and he could feel the blood pounding through his veins as he crossed the room to stand in front of her. His eyes were blazing as his right fist slammed into the door next to her head. He opened his mouth to yell but as he reached out to grab her, intending to shake her and then push her out of his way, he was hit by a wave of nausea.

He backed away from her and his left hand wrapped around the footboard, locking his knees and forcing his body to stay upright. The feeling of weakness assaulted his muscles and joints, threatening to make him lose control of his standing position.

Maria frowned when his hand shot out to clutch at the footboard, concerned when all of the color drained from his face. She took a couple of steps in his direction, reaching out to touch him and see if he was all right. "Michael - "

He jerked away from her before she could make contact, glaring at her as he took an experimental breath, gauging whether or not he was going to be able to move without passing out. "This all goes back to the shop in the mornin' and you go back to sleepin' on the fuckin' couch," he rasped, pissed off that whatever this problem was, it was rearing its ugly head once again.

Maria moved back to her original position and crossed her arms over her chest as they stared at each other. "Fine, but tonight I'm sleeping in this fucking bed, in this fucking room, and I want you to let me have one night of fucking peace!"

Michael took a step back, shocked at her use of the profanity as she screamed at the top of her lungs. He quickly recovered and stalked over to her, towering over her as he stared down into her fiery green eyes. "Go ahead," he snarled, "enjoy the next eight hours of fuckin' peace! We're movin' all this shit after breakfast, so don't get too comfortable." He brushed past her and slammed the door behind him, heading to his own room so he could shower and go to bed. He just hoped that his sleep wouldn't be disrupted by the illness that had suddenly made its presence known once more.

Maria took a deep breath and threw herself down on the bed, sighing tiredly. She had been so relieved to see him alive and in one piece, and he had gone and ruined the moment by opening his mouth and acting exactly like the jackass he was. She didn't know how she was going to manage it, but she was not giving up her bedroom now that she finally had it.

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Michael climbed into bed after his shower as exhaustion warred with anger over the situation with Maria. He stared at the ceiling in the darkness and before long the anger began to melt away as sleep started to pull him under.

_The streets of Santa Fe were busy and panic was clawing at his chest as he moved through the crowd, looking for someplace private to deal with the episode that he could feel coming on. There were people everywhere though and he was losing the ability to focus on his surroundings._

_The people around him began to appear as shapeless beings and their voices combined, merging together and becoming unbearably loud. A shock ran through his entire body as he stumbled and his knees struck the concrete. His mind barely registered the burning sensation as his hands shot out to stop his fall and he only succeeded in skinning his palms when they slid across the grainy surface of the sidewalk._

_He heard someone shouting for help and he tried to tell them that it was unnecessary but he couldn't form the words that he needed. Medics suddenly appeared from nowhere and he was quickly strapped to a gurney and loaded into the back of an ambulance. He tried to tell them that it would pass, that their equipment and assessments weren't necessary, but one of them slipped an oxygen mask over his mouth and nose, preventing him from speaking._

_He tried to fight against the straps holding him down when the medics started to discuss taking blood. He jerked back as far as his bonds would allow when he felt the needle prick the flesh of his upper arm and his movements suddenly became sluggish._

_"That'll calm you down, buddy," one of the medics said. "Don't worry, we're taking you to the best facility in the city; the doctors there'll figure out what's wrong with you."_

_Whatever they had injected him with worked fast and before he could form a coherent thought the darkness of unconsciousness claimed him. When he awoke he was disoriented and confused by his surroundings; he had been inside of hospital rooms before, visiting buddies who had been wounded in action, but he couldn't recall one that had looked like this. Hospital rooms were always sterile and cold, but this felt more like an interrogation room and as the drugs began to dissipate and his vision cleared he became aware of the mirrored walls that surrounded him on all sides._

_He turned his attention to his restraints and he frowned when he saw the leather straps that effectively held him captive. He tugged against them experimentally, noting that there wasn't enough give in them to allow him to work his wrists free. His gaze shot across the room when a dark haired man entered; he wasn't dressed like a doctor and Michael relaxed fractionally. He had probably been captured by some agency hoping to extract information about one of his recent missions; it wasn't be the first time he had been taken and his captors always slipped up at some point, paving the way for his escape._

_The man moved around the room silently, making it a point to continually put himself in a position that took him out of Michael's sight. It was a tactic meant to make him nervous, to induce fear in the captive, to put him on edge as he waited to see what his captor would do next. Michael wasn't new to this method of interrogation and the man in the dark suit wasn't intimidating as he skulked around the room._

_"You think I'm from some rival agency," the man said finally, his voice condescending as he moved to stand at the foot of the gurney Michael was strapped to. He crossed his arms over his chest as he waited for a response._

_Michael shrugged as much as he could in spite of his restraints. "Should we just go directly to the part where I list off my name, rank, and serial number? Because I'm not givin' you any information - "_

_"No?"_

_"Nope, not a fuckin' thing." The man smiled and the expression actually sent a chill down Michael's spine, making him question the man's motives for kidnapping him. _

_The man suddenly moved to stand next to Michael, leaning down so that he was only inches away from him, his cold eyes boring into him as he searched for some sign of weakness. "I'm not interested in any of your covert assignments for the Company, Mr. Guerin." He chuckled, the sound humorless. "I'm interested in what your mission is here - "_

_"In Santa Fe? My mission was to get laid."_

_"Your mission on Earth," the man snapped, irritated by his captive's flippancy. "I know you're not human, so let's just go around your usual bullshit and get directly to the point, shall we?"_

_"No clue what you're talkin' about," Michael stated, hoping the trembling he could feel inside wasn't visible as he stared the man down._

_"Your blood was taken at the hospital after your collapse… did you think that no one would notice that it's not human?" He stepped back away from the gurney, stroking his chin as he observed his captive. "What is your purpose for being on Earth? Are you here to research us? To provide Intel to your own people for a future invasion?"_

_Michael had been trained to withstand torture at the hands of the enemy, but he had never come face-to-face with anyone who knew that he wasn't human. Despite his best intentions he could feel his heart racing, his palms sweating, and for the first time that he could ever remember, he knew what true fear was._

_"We have ways of getting the truth, Mr. Guerin. We can make it as easy or as difficult as you want to make it." He snapped his fingers when silence answered him. "Obviously you prefer the hard way."_

_Michael turned his head to the side when the door opened and several people entered the room, dressed in white surgical clothing. One of them pushed a cart filled with sterile equipment and vials of colored liquids that sloshed gently with the movement of the cart. _

_"Are you aware that your threshold for pain isn't that much greater than that of the average human? The abrasions on your hands, for example, I'll bet that probably stung when you skinned them on the pavement. Or that bullet wound in your left shoulder - that probably hurt like hell when it happened."_

_Michael glanced at his left shoulder, frowning at what looked suspiciously like an old bullet wound. He had been shot before, but he didn't recall ever taking a bullet right there. _

_"So, while you might have a slightly higher threshold to pain than the average human, you're still susceptible to pain and suffering." His smile was positively malicious as he moved close once more, his right hand reaching out and closing around a scalpel. "I've been trained in many fields over the years, but you know, the medical field is one that simply fascinates me."_

_Michael's eyes followed the agent's hand as he placed the razor-sharp blade against his bare chest. He could feel the cold steel brushing his skin and he gasped in shock and pain when the agent moved suddenly, slicing into his flesh with ease. "What the fuck are you doin'?" he shouted as he tried without success to pull away from his tormentor._

_"Do you know what concerns me most about your existence?" the agent asked as he paused in his task to look at his captive. "The fact that your alien blood is the only thing that sent up a red flag about what you are. You appear human; nothing about your internal or external makeup reveals your true identity. If it weren't for the fact that the blood that was drawn at the hospital showed extreme abnormalities you'd still be walking around free to do whatever you're here to do."_

_"I'm not here to do anything," Michael denied, doing his best to keep his gaze away from the blood that he could feel welling up from the incision and spilling over to trail down his sides._

_"I could stand here and remove your internal organs one by one while you watch, but that's not gonna tell me why you're here. I could use leverage against you, but you have no one who even cares that you're nowhere to be found." He smiled coldly as he placed the blade less than an inch from the previous incision. "Do you know how long it takes to bleed to death from wounds like this?" he asked as he added another incision next to the first. "I can make this last so long that you'll beg me to let you die."_

Michael awoke from the nightmare, his heart pounding, his breath coming in ragged pants, and his sheets soaked with sweat. His hand shot to his chest as he bolted from the bed and stumbled into the bathroom, turning the overhead light on and leaning in close to the mirror. His chest lacked any evidence of incisions and he gripped the edge of the sink in an effort to force the trembling in his limbs to stop.

He had thought that the nightmares that had been plaguing him recently were bad, but this was worse. Fear was still new to him, but this nightmare had taken that fear to a new level. After waking from the previous nightmares there had been no memory of what had occurred, only the feeling of fear that had accompanied the blurred images. This time he had complete recall of the events and the images were crystal clear; the feelings of fear were bad enough but they could be explained by the mental connection. He had no way of explaining how he had felt imaginary incisions being made, cutting into flesh and slicing through muscles and nerves.

When he could control his breathing and his heart rate began to smooth out into a normal rhythm he looked at his reflection in the mirror, searching his left shoulder for the scar he had seen in the nightmare. _Why would his mind conjure up a gunshot wound that didn't exist? He had been shot several times in the line of duty, so why not use an existing scar?_

_Is that what would happen to him if anyone ever discovered the truth?_ he wondered as he leaned over to turn the faucets on in the shower. He had never really considered how he would be treated if the truth ever came out, he had just done his best to avoid it. Maria had mentioned that one of the aliens had been captured and tortured by some government group but she hadn't elaborated. He shook his head; he didn't want to think about it, he just wanted to clean up and go back to sleep.

After his shower though, he was wide awake and not that interested in going back to sleep. Once he'd had time to think about it he decided that more sleep wasn't what he wanted; there was a good chance that the nightmares might surface again and that was the last thing he wanted. He prowled around the house restlessly, needing peace and not knowing how to find it.

Against his will he was drawn to the bedroom where Maria had staked her claim and taken up residence. The door was open and he slipped inside quietly, moving to stand next to the bed so he could watch her. The moon was full and cast enough light into the room that he could see her clearly; she was distraught, her features pinched and filled with pain as she shifted around. Her left arm stretched out to the other side of the mattress, her hand clawing as she reached for something and her movements became agitated when she didn't find what she was searching for.

He didn't know what possessed him to retrieve the wooden rocking chair from the corner by the window and place it next to the bed, but he didn't question it. He let his instincts lead him as he sat down and let his gaze travel over the woman sleeping fitfully. His head tipped to one side when she whimpered, the sound filled with distress as her hand encountered more empty space and her fingers curled into the covers, clenching and unclenching before going back to her futile search.

Something that he didn't recognize or understand prompted him to extend his arm and rest his hand on the mattress. He watched in disbelief as her hand located his with unerring accuracy, curling around it as she relaxed and almost immediately fell into a peaceful sleep. His own nerves settled in response to her touch and he slouched down in the chair as he turned his gaze to the tree branch brushing against the window pane when the wind blew through the desert.

He didn't understand how someone who was so infuriating and had the ability to provoke him and make his blood boil in his veins could also provide such a calming influence to his rattled nerves. He didn't question it; he simply decided that the only reason he had even offered his hand in the first place was to keep her from waking up. He knew the minute she woke up she'd start talking and he wouldn't have a prayer of shutting her up. He needed peace and quiet after the terrifyingly real nightmare that he'd had so he settled for sitting in her room and holding her hand in an effort to prevent her from waking up and destroying what little peace he could find.


	20. Chapter 19

**Part 19**

Maria woke up and looked around as she tried to figure out what had woken her up. The house was dark so she knew it was too early for Michael to be on his way outside for his morning run. She was shifting onto her side when it registered in her sleepy brain that her hand was being held in a warm, calloused grip.

Her eyes followed her arm to her hand and then to the man slouched down in an uncomfortable sprawl in the rocking chair next to the bed. She wondered what had driven him from his own bed and made him take up his current position, certain that it wasn't something he had necessarily _wanted_ to do. He wasn't the type of man who sought out comfort or offered it, so waking up and finding him sitting in her room, holding her hand was completely unexpected… and slightly unnerving.

He shifted and his features became taut as his sleep was disturbed by something that she couldn't see. Her response was automatic as she rubbed his hand, applying enough pressure to soothe away the tension she could feel thrumming through his body, but not so much that it would wake him up. After several minutes he began to calm, settling back into sleep as he slid further down in the rocking chair.

Had he been her Michael she would have simply tugged on his hand and pulled him into bed with her, wrapped him in her arms and held him until the nightmare released him from its grip. But, despite the momentary illusion provided by the early hour and the rare glimpse of vulnerability in his harsh features, he wasn't her Michael and she leaned back against her pillow with a regretful sigh.

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Michael awoke several hours later, his internal alarm clock letting him know it was time to start the day. His gaze shifted to the woman asleep in the bed he was sitting next to, her hand still wrapped around his. He pulled his hand free, careful to not wake her up, and he slipped from her room so he could get ready for his morning run.

When he got back the sun had risen above the horizon and he could smell breakfast cooking so he knew Maria was up. He decided to avoid the kitchen for a while and went to take a shower before facing her. After passing the room she had claimed as hers he backtracked and stood in the doorway, his eyes scanning over the furniture that he still hadn't figured out how she had managed to move on her own. He shook his head and walked back to his bedroom as he considered his next move.

Maria was setting breakfast on the table when he stepped into the kitchen a short while later and despite his intention to bring up the situation with the bedroom furniture, he found himself distracted by the tempting scent of food.

"I'm not changin' my mind just because you cooked," he muttered as he paused in the doorway to watch her.

Maria shrugged as she placed a short stack of pancakes on the table next to his plate. "And I'm not helping you move all that furniture back out to the shop."

_Argument or food… argument or food…_ Michael debated for all of thirty seconds before he gathered his plates up and carried them into the living room. He came back for the glass of juice, syrup, and the jar of salsa sitting on the table.

Maria shook her head at his behavior and stared at her pancakes; they just weren't quite the same without syrup. _Was it worth an argument with him just to get it back?_ She drummed her fingers on the counter as she tried to decide how badly she wanted the syrup. _Yes,_ she decided, _it was._

Michael looked up when his view of the television was obscured by his irate houseguest and he motioned for her to move with the hand holding his fork. "Get outta the way," he mumbled around a mouthful of pancakes. "You're blockin' the TV."

"I'd like the syrup, please." She sent a pointed look at the bottle he was clutching in his left hand when he just looked at her.

"Oh." He squeezed more of the syrup over his pancakes until they were practically swimming in the thick liquid and then handed it to her. "Go away now so I can watch TV in peace."

"No problem," she muttered as she stalked out of the room. _Cretin!_ Not a single ounce of appreciation for the fact that she had spent the past hour slaving over a hot stove cooking for him. _Jerk couldn't even be bothered to pretend he was civilized long enough to eat a meal at the breakfast table._

She sat down with her own breakfast and realized that she really didn't have an appetite. It wasn't exactly something new; she hadn't had much of an appetite in weeks, not since that day when… _No! She wasn't going to think about it._ She shoved the thoughts away, pushing them back down into the dark corner where she kept them hidden so she didn't have to deal with them. She couldn't afford to let those feelings out because she knew the moment she did she would be consumed by them.

"Why aren't you eatin'?" Michael asked as he placed his breakfast dishes in the sink.

Maria rolled her eyes. "Do you think you could rinse those off and put them in the dishwasher?"

"I could," he said, nodding his head. "But, why should I when you can do it?" He made a motion towards her plate. "You'd better eat; you're gonna need your strength so we can get that furniture moved back out to the shop."

"We're not moving that furniture out of that bedroom," she said adamantly.

"That room is _not_ a bedroom!" he shouted, infuriated by her refusal to help fix what she had messed up. "No one told you that you could move all that shit in the house… and how did you get in the shop anyway?"

"You didn't make it all that difficult." Maria's tone was condescending and she knew she was only pushing him into a fight, but at that moment she didn't really care. "If you had any idea how to use your powers I wouldn't have been able to pick that lock."

Michael's temper flared at the implication that he was incompetent and he wrapped his hands around the edge of the counter to stop himself from doing something stupid. "You had no right to move my stuff outta the office, or to break into my shop and move all that stuff in the house. I should have you arrested for breaking and entering."

"Go ahead."

His back teeth began to grind in response to her goading and he took a deep breath to bring himself under control. "I didn't bring you here so you could just move in and take over!"

The dishes rattled when her fist pounded against the table. "Why did you bring me here?"

"Because the last thing I need is for you to run your fuckin' mouth and bring attention to me."

"It was never my intention to do that; all I want is to figure out why I'm here so I can do whatever it is I'm here to do. Why won't you listen to me? I just wanna go back home to my Michael and I can't do that until I've accomplished whatever mission the Granolith sent me here to - "

"I'm not interested in your alternate reality or your pathetic lovesick puppy routine! I want you to eat so we can get to work on movin' that furniture."

_Lovesick puppy routine?_ Maria's right hand clenched around the glass she was holding and before she could control the impulse or her anger, she threw it across the room where it hit the wall and shattered inches from where he was standing. "You have no right to talk about my feelings!"

Michael glanced over his shoulder at the juice dripping down the wall and the bits and pieces of glass littering the counter and floor next to him. He had seen it coming, had seen the anger building in her features, but he had to admit that he was surprised that she had actually carried through with the action. "You'll wanna clean that up before we get started on that furniture."

"We're not moving one single piece of that furniture. As long as I'm here I will have my own room - "

"This is not a democracy! This is my house and - "

Maria pushed back away from the table and stood up. "Do you even understand the need for privacy? You and me, we're stuck together for the present time, and I need my own space just like you need yours."

"You don't have the slightest clue what I need!" he yelled as he straightened up and pushed away from the counter. "Don't stand there and talk about things you don't know a damn thing about!" He grabbed his wallet and keys off of the counter and stalked through the laundry room to jerk the door to the garage open.

Maria shook her head when she heard the motorcycle's engine revving up as the garage door was opened. _Why couldn't they ever just have an amicable conversation? Why did he have to be so argumentative?_ She sighed as she dropped back down in the chair and her gaze was automatically drawn to the mess she had made when she threw the glass at the infuriating man. She knew she couldn't really blame this argument on him; she had started it and she had been more than willing to keep pushing him to keep it going.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Michael left his motorcycle in the parking lot and walked up to the doors of a bar a few blocks from the building that housed Marcos' offices. The bar was a safe place for people like him to hang out and unwind at the end of the day or to just kick back and relax after a difficult assignment. The people who frequented the bar were all employed by the Company or one of its contractors; outsiders weren't welcomed into the bar and the man that stood at the entrance made sure that they didn't make it inside.

The big man nodded and waved one beefy hand when Michael reached for his ID. The man crossed his massive arms over his chest and stepped back to allow the new arrival to enter the bar. "Think I don't know you by now, Guerin?" he rumbled. "How long've I been standin' at this door?"

"Long enough, Rafael" Michael muttered.

He cleared his throat and grinned when the younger man took two steps back and glared at him.

"This is unnecessary."

"You know the rules, Guerin; check your gear at the door or put it in reverse."

Michael turned to look at the owner of the new voice; it was deep and raspy and belonged to the owner of the bar. "Hey, Gabriel."

At nearly seven feet tall, bald, and heavily muscled, Gabriel was a force to be reckoned with; he was a living legend within the Company and the people who frequented his bar knew better than to cross him. A small smile slid across his tough features when Michael removed two concealed handguns and the knife strapped to his right boot beneath his khaki pants. His expression radiated annoyance when he dropped the items into the bin that Rafael held out in front of him.

"You've got locker thirty-seven tonight," the man announced as he slid the bin into one of the lockers mounted to the wall behind his desk.

Gabriel walked back to the bar and pulled a bottle of beer out of one of the coolers beneath the counter, uncapping it before sitting it on the polished surface in front of the younger man. "What brings you in here so early in the day, Michael?"

"Just needed some breathin' room," he muttered cryptically. He made a motion towards the stage that was empty at the moment. "Who's playin' tonight?"

"Local talent." He could tell that Michael wasn't in the mood for conversation and he wasn't on the prowl because most of the patrons were male and Gabriel didn't allow the guys to put the moves on his waitresses. It was too early in the day for most of the regulars to be showing up any time soon, and it was odd for Michael to be there as early as it was.

"They any good?"

"Would I hire them to play here if they weren't?" He shook his head. "Why don't you just tell me why you're hangin' out this early?"

"Mind your own fuckin' business, Gabriel." His head snapped up when the giant behind the counter chuckled.

"Somethin' has seriously got you wound up."

"I am _not_ wound up," he snarled.

"Well, I've seen you a lot more relaxed than this, Michael. You look like you could choke someone without a second thought right now and I happen to know for a fact that you're not on any assignments for Marcos. Matter of fact, that last job wasn't anything that would account for this type of tension."

"If I say I'm not interested in talkin' about it can we just leave it alone?" Michael took a long drink from the chilled bottle and tapped it against the counter.

"Your choice. You'd feel better if you'd just get it out in the open though."

"I don't subscribe to your belief system, Gabriel; maybe you like to talk about your… _feelings_, but I'm not interested."

"Suit yourself." He fixed himself a glass of ginger ale and braced one hand on the counter. "Confession's good for the soul though."

Michael rolled his eyes and motioned for another bottle of his preferred brand of beer; he had no interest in talking about his feelings or anyone else's. He should've been able to hold up his end of the argument much better than he had, and it bothered him that he had simply walked away instead of pushing back until he had won. He knew the blame could be placed on the nightmare; he hadn't been able to completely shake the images or the feelings that came with them and it had prevented him from focusing on the argument.

He should be moving furniture and making Maria help him, but instead he was sitting in a bar an hour from home, wondering how long he could avoid going back home.


	21. Chapter 20

**Part 20**

Maria browsed through the hundreds of titles in Michael's movie collection, mentally marking each one off of her list of possible entertainment options. Every single one of them so far fell into one of two categories: action-packed and full of fight scenes and gunplay or porn.

She pulled one of the small plastic cases off of the shelf to scan the description on the back before quickly deciding that it wasn't acceptable either. Several shelves later she pulled out what looked like a science fiction, but one glance at the title on the front cover ruled it out - _Lust in Space_… yeah, she wasn't interested in space porn. _Leave it to Michael to have that in his collection,_ she thought with a roll of her eyes. Curiosity had her reaching for the next one and she wondered if it was really a documentary; it was completely out of place in his rather… disgusting collection. Oh, well, the only thing on television was sports, news, or porn, so surely a documentary would at least alleviate her boredom for a little while.

She popped the case open and frowned down at the… _was that the movie?_ she wondered as she lifted out what looked like a small square microchip. She had assumed the cases held regular DVD's, it hadn't occurred to her that the media in this universe would look so different. She moved to stand in front of the wall where the television was mounted and her gaze slid over the stereo system built into the wall on one side of the fireplace. She moved to the opposite side and scanned over what had to be this universe's equivalent of an entertainment system. Like the rest of the electronic equipment, it was built into the wall but there were no buttons, knobs, or dials on the face of any of the components.

Maria returned the movie to its place on the shelf and wandered around for several minutes before finally taking a seat on the couch. She was tired of sitting around the house day after day; she didn't mind cooking and cleaning in exchange for staying with Michael, but she was used to paying her own way. She needed to be doing something to provide for herself, but she also needed something that would keep her mind occupied.

The loud roar of the motorcycle's engine brought her out of her thoughts and she sighed tiredly; she wasn't in the mood to get into another argument with Michael. She could feel every nerve ending in her body as they responded to the sound of the door slamming and his wallet and keys landing on the counter.

Michael grabbed a beer from the refrigerator before going into the living room in search of his houseguest. "Nothin' on TV?" he asked as he dropped down in his chair.

"No. I thought you might have a movie worth watching, but I was wrong." She picked at a thread on her shorts and shook her head. There wasn't a single classic movie there; not sci-fi or even an action adventure movie. His collection was so limited! What about television series? Didn't they exist in this universe? She would even settle for a space opera like Star Wars! _Star Wars… Harrison Ford, now that guy was hot! She would love to just sit down and watch him play his Han Solo role, while eating ice cream and giggling with Liz._ "You don't even have Star Wars," she mumbled.

Michael looked at her. _What the hell was she talking about now?_ "Star what?"

"Wars," she corrected. "Star Wars."

_Trust her to quibble over every little thing, even the title of a fuckin' movie. She was the kind of girl who liked to be right all the time._ "What is it? War movie?"

Sure, mention the word _war_ and he was interested. _Men, they were all the same!_ "After seeing your extensive movie collection, I can't imagine that there's a war film in existence that you don't already have, but, no, it's not a war movie. I'm surprised you don't have it considering your tastes include sci-fi." She rolled her eyes. "Granted, most of your sci-fi is filled with graphic violence or sex - "

Michael smirked. "That would be graphic violence _and_ sex. What's the movie about?"

"Well, it's actually more than one movie," she said and went on to describe the basic plot of the film.

He slouched down in his chair and listened to her as she talked about a movie that she had obviously seen more than once. He was getting close to the end of his beer by the time she started to wrap up the lengthy description. "So, the pilot and the princess, do they get it on or what?"

Maria rolled her eyes. "I don't know why I even bother."

Michael smirked. _Yeah, they got it on. They had to. They were bickering, fighting, just like the two of them and she didn't want to tell him that because she knew what he would say; that it was just a question of time before she fell into his arms like that Leila girl. Or, Lola. Or, was it Lara?_ He shook his head. _Whatever._

She crossed her arms over her chest as she leaned back against the cushions. She knew that expression. He was happy with himself for some insane reason. _What was it about Star Wars that could possibly put him in such a good mood?_ she wondered. "So, you've never heard of the movies?"

"Nope."

_That was crazy. A world where Star Wars didn't exist? Her Alex would have a heart attack if he had known about that!_ "They must've never been made in your universe then; you'd have heard of them otherwise," she muttered.

He grunted, the sound non-committal. "I suppose they're Mr. Perfect's favorite movies?"

Maria shook her head. _Why did he insist on believing her Michael was like that?_ She had already told him that he wasn't like that. "I've already told you that Michael and perfection have never been synonymous. But, no, his favorite movie would have to be Braveheart."

"I've heard of that one."

"Have you seen it?" Her eyebrows lifted in surprise when he shook his head negatively. "Considering your preference for that type of storyline I'd think you'd have seen it."

"Looked more like a romance with some fight scenes thrown in when they aired the commercials." He shrugged. "Not really interested."

"You should give it a chance; I think you'd be surprised. Do you think maybe we could make a deal?" She rolled her eyes when his features immediately expressed interest. "Not that kinda deal," she denied, laughing when his expression turned petulant. "Take me someplace to rent something worth watching and I'll make a meal that you'll love for dinner."

Michael's stomach almost jumped for joy at her offer. _Damn, he was getting too used to her cooking._ _But she knew how to cook and she knew how to make spicy recipes that his alien side just loved._ "I guess we could do that." He went into the kitchen to toss the empty bottle in the trash and then retraced his steps. "I'm gonna go take a shower. We can go get a movie after I'm finished."

"Michael?"

He didn't know how he knew, but something about her tone alerted him to her next topic. "I'm not arguin' over the bedroom."

"I have no interest in fighting about it; I also have no intention of giving that room up." _Good lord, he was so stubborn. But she wasn't going to give up; the bedroom was hers, period._

Now that they had formed a tentative truce and she wasn't bitching at him about anything and everything he wanted to enjoy it for a while. "Keep the fuckin' bedroom; I don't feel like movin' all that shit anyway. Can you be ready in fifteen minutes?" He didn't bother waiting for an answer.

Maria watched him go and tried to avoid thinking about him in the shower. _Naked. Wet. Probably horny. Scratch that, he was horny all the damn time. _She shook her head, horrified with her own thoughts. _What was wrong with her? This Michael wasn't her Michael. He was a pig who unfortunately had her Michael's face and body. That was all. Right. _She sat on the couch while waiting for him. _That was __**all**__._

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"I've been thinking," Maria said when she heard him enter the room behind her exactly fifteen minutes later.

"Oh, hell," he muttered. "That doesn't sound good."

Maria took a deep breath. _She wasn't going to get angry… nope, she wasn't going to._ "Can you just listen to me for a few minutes before we get into another argument?" She hurried to continue when he gestured for her to go on with whatever she had to say. "I'd like to find a job; there's gotta be someplace around here that's looking for a waitress. You don't have to worry about me telling anyone about you - "

"You wanna find a job?" he asked, surprised.

She bristled, not liking his tone. "Contrary to what you might think I'm not used to someone else paying my way, and I'm so bored I could scream." _Who did he take her for? Some princess used to people pampering her? As if! It was time that he learned who the real Maria DeLuca was._

"Well, since that's not the kinda screamin' I'm interested in hearin', maybe we can work somethin' out."

Maria shook her head. _And here they were, back on the subject of sex again. The man was completely obsessed._ "Do you ever pull your mind out of the gutter?"

"On the rare occasion." He shrugged. "You're the one who brought up the topic of screamin', not me."

"In reference to boredom, Michael, not… not…" She trailed off, exasperated by his one-track mind.

"Not a sexual connotation?" he offered helpfully. "Too bad. Anyway, about the job idea, I might be able to help you with that."

Maria watched him closely, wondering what he was hiding. _He wasn't the kind of guy who played nice without expecting something in return._ "You?"

_Bitch! What'd she think, that he had no friends?_ Now, he was offended. "Hey, I know people. I know someone who owns a bar in L.A. and I can probably give him a call and get you in the door."

"Uh-huh," Maria said slowly. "I didn't say I was looking for a job as a stripper."

Michael snorted and waved the hand holding the bottle in the direction of her upper body. "Baby, guys aren't gonna pay good money to see what you've got."

"As I recall, _what I've got_ didn't stop you from looking," she snapped. _Dumbass! How dare he insinuate that she wasn't pretty? Okay, she wasn't a sex bomb, she knew that, but she wasn't ugly to the point that guys wouldn't pay to see her dance topless! Wait, what she thinking? God, Michael was driving her insane; there was no other reason for her train of thought. Dancing topless? With guys paying to see her? Was she really so disturbed by his words that she would try to cheer herself up by picturing herself as a topless dancer just to prove him wrong?_

He held his hands up, hoping to stop her before she could really get going. "Trust me on this; you'd just be wastin' your time. Now, before you get your panties in a twist, just hear me out; like I said, I've got a buddy who owns a bar L.A. and he might be willin' to hire you to waitress out at his place."

Maria remained wary; she just knew Michael had something up his sleeve. She had to ask, even though chances were good that he would act innocent. "What's the catch? There's gotta be a catch."

Michael couldn't help the pang in his heart when he heard her skepticism. He shook his head to clear his mind. _No reason to be hurt or anything. He supposed he had given her plenty of reasons to doubt him. But damn, for once, he was being sincere!_ "You wouldn't be workin' as a stripper, the waitresses aren't topless, and the guys who hang out there know better than to lay so much as a finger on any of Gabriel's girls."

"So, let's go talk to him," Maria said, feeling interest in something for the first time in too long. Not to mention that she hadn't left the house in close to two weeks and she was going stir-crazy. She was so excited she could kiss him! _And if he wasn't so much of an ass that he would see it as an invitation to engage in sex she might have even considered following through on that thought._ "Can you call him today?"

The sparkle of anticipation in her eyes and the flush of excitement in her cheeks tugged at something inside of him and he moved across the room to put distance between them. He didn't understand these weird, unexpected… _feelings_ - there was no other word for the damn things - that kept cropping up at the strangest times when he was around her. "No."

_No? NO? Oh, come on, she finally had a goal, something to look forward to!_ She tried to push her advantage, now that she had one. "C'mon, Michael, let's go talk to him today!"

"No." He shook his head. "I'll give him a call tonight and if he's got a spot open we can go talk to him tomorrow." He made a gesture when she remained sitting on the couch. "Are you ready to go?"

Maria jumped up and crossed the room. "Yes."

Michael watched her as she gathered up a couple of _necessary_ things before breezing past him on her way to the garage. His dark eyes slid over her bare legs beneath the shorts and he growled low in his throat. _She was fuckin' killin' him,_ he thought as he followed her.

In the garage Maria opened the passengers' side door and slid inside, congratulating herself on getting her way as she buckled her seatbelt. He thought he was so smart and she knew he was so certain that he had won the battle, but she had him right where she wanted him. She hadn't had any reason to think that he would set up a meeting with his friend tonight, but if he'd had his way they wouldn't be going to see the guy until the next time he felt like going into the city.

She smirked when he stepped into the garage, checking his pockets as he walked to the vehicle. Now, despite his plans, they were going to see her potential employer tomorrow. _That'll teach him,_ she thought triumphantly.

Michael pulled the door closed behind him as he entered the garage, pleased with his ability to tell her no. Damn woman thought she was so smart and as he glanced at her through the windshield, he could tell she thought she had won the battle. He shook his head and opened the drivers' side door. They would go and see Gabriel when he was good and ready, and that would be tomorrow. If she'd had her way they'd be on their way into the city right now. _That'll teach her,_ he thought with an internal grin.

He reached for the garage door opener clipped to the visor and pressed the button to open the door. "What's for dinner?" he asked, privately enjoying his win.

"You'll have to wait and see." Maria rolled her window down, loving the feel of the warm early evening breeze as it brushed against her skin. It was nice to not be arguing with him for a change and she was determined to take advantage of it for as long as it lasted.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Maria frowned at the name of the bar as she and Michael approached the front entrance the next day. "Azrael's Sanctuary?" she questioned.

Michael shrugged as they stepped into the cool, dark interior where Rafael was waiting behind the counter. "She's with me," he said as he removed his weapons and placed them in the bin sitting on the counter.

"I'm two steps ahead of you, Guerin." The big man grinned. "As always. Gabriel's waitin' for you in his office." He turned and slid the bin into one of the lockers before slamming the door and locking it. "You've got locker twenty-four today." He held a large hand out in Maria's direction, shaking her much smaller hand when she accepted the gesture. "I'm Rafael."

"Maria," she said with a smile.

"Good luck with that job interview. And don't let Gabriel's appearance fool you; he's a big softy," Rafael advised.

"Um, thanks?" _Was Gabriel that scary?_ she wondered.

He chuckled and waved them inside, leaning against the counter as he watched them with a speculative gleam in his gray eyes. _Since when did Guerin show this much interest in any woman?_ Sure, she was cute, but he had never known the younger man to get this involved with a woman; the kid was notorious for his refusal to form attachments. He shook his head and turned his attention back to the entrance when the door opened and another agent stepped inside.

Gabriel glanced up from the ledger he was writing in when someone knocked on his door. He motioned for the woman standing with Michael to enter the office as he stood and rounded the desk. He held a hand out, preventing the other man from coming inside as he reached for the door to shut it.

"No one asked you to come inside, Michael." He smiled at the younger man's dark look. "Go grab a beer and we'll be with you when we're finished." He shut the door in Michael's face and shook the young woman's hand before gesturing to one of the chairs in front of his desk as he returned to his seat. "You can call me Gabriel," he said as his gaze scanned over Michael's… friend.

"Gabriel…" Maria trailed off, fishing for a last name.

"Just Gabriel."

"Oh, like Madonna," Maria said with a big smile. _Sure, the man was big but she was getting good vibes from him._

He frowned. "Who?"

"Madonna." _Okay, if he hadn't heard of her, she must not exist in this universe either,_ Maria thought. "Nobody, just a singer where I'm from." _No Star Wars, no Madonna…_ She wondered what else was different. She had just scraped the surface, apparently, and she was going to have other surprises along the way. _Maybe there wasn't a Britney Spears. Hey, if she was really lucky, maybe there wasn't a Courtney, either._ Her smiled widened at that one. _Now that was a good thought!_

Gabriel nodded dismissively. "Michael says you have a few years of waitress experience, but due to your current… circumstances, it isn't possible to contact your previous employer." He nodded and waved one hand dismissively when she shifted uncomfortably. "Don't worry about it, Maria; most of the girls who work for me have a past that they can't or won't talk about and I have no problem with that. Azrael's Sanctuary is a place that provides anonymity for patrons and employees alike; the guys know better than to cross the line with any of my girls and if they do they're gonna pay the price. This bar is a place where the girls are safe and off of the streets and the agents can unwind without worryin' about what they say or do."

"That's nice, that they have a place like this to come to," she said, impressed with Gabriel's generosity.

"No," he said, shaking his head at her naïve response. "It's not nice, it's necessary. The men and women who frequent Azrael's are trained to kill, to do whatever it takes to do their job and stay alive. They come here after missions to unwind and find a little peace before goin' back out into a world that can't understand what they do. It's important for them to have some downtime before goin' back out into society; you can't just take an agent out of the field where they're doin' everything they can to complete their mission and get out alive and just put them right back into an ordinary everyday situation. That's a recipe for disaster." He leaned back in his chair, the leather creaking as he stretched his long legs out beneath the desk. "They don't come here to engage in social conversation, or to answer curious questions about what they do or where they've been or anything else. You'll hear a lot of bullshit stories, and there're a lot of them, especially from the younger agents, braggin' about their heroics in the field and in the sack. They're raw, coarse, and they're gonna be tellin' a million lies about what they do and how they do it; don't buy into it and don't try to strike up a conversation with them. Just smile, serve their food and drinks, and move on to the next customer. Think you can handle that?"

_Yeah, she'd have no problems with that. Between dealing with two Michael Guerins and waitressing for years, she was used to handling difficult people. _"I can handle it. Although, to be honest, I enjoy talking and I don't want to promise that I won't…" She fell silent when he held his right hand up.

"Michael said you talked a lot. I don't have a problem with you talkin' to the customers as long as you don't pry for information and you keep up with your share of the work. Fair enough?"

Maria nodded. "More than fair enough."

For the next half hour they discussed schedules, wages, and expectations. The job would only get her out of the house three days each week - four if Gabriel was short-handed and needed the extra help - but she was still looking forward to getting started.

"So, I'll schedule you for the day after tomorrow." He shrugged. "Thursdays are slow so that'll give you a chance to get settled in and meet some of the customers. The people who come in here are already regulars; it's not often that we get new folks comin' by."

"Everyone who comes to this bar is in the same profession?" That seemed weird to Maria. A bar whose clientele was composed entirely of professional killers and mercenaries; she would have thought such a place existed only in television shows or books.

"In some capacity, yes, and since you came in with Michael I'm sure you noticed that Rafael asked for his weapons at the door. We don't allow anyone past the foyer if they won't turn their weapons in for safekeeping with Rafael while they're here. Some of these folks come in after rough assignments and it doesn't take much to start a fight if the mood's right; they're dangerous enough without weapons, so it's best if they're unarmed." Gabriel laced his fingers together and popped his knuckles before placing his hands flat on the desk. "Any other questions?"

"Did you choose the name for this place?" It was such a strange name, Azrael's Sanctuary. Thanks to Gabriel's explanation she could understand the use of the Sanctuary part, but she had a feeling that there was a story behind the bar's name and she was genuinely interested in learning about it.

"I did," he confirmed as he stood up.

Maria frowned when he didn't expound on his reason for choosing the name of the bar. "It's an interesting name," she said, trying to fish for an answer.

"Yep."

She stood and gathered up her purse and jacket when he said no more, accepting that the interview was over and he wasn't going to offer any further information. She stood and followed him out of the office, her eyes scanning the crowded room for Michael when her new boss moved behind the bar and started filling orders.

She finally located Michael standing around a pool table with several rough-looking guys and a tall, fairly attractive woman. Her gaze slid over the woman, taking in the shoulder-length light brown hair and her athletic, yet feminine, build. She seemed to be right at home amid all of the men and she didn't think twice about giving Michael a good-natured shove as she moved around the table to line up the next shot.

Maria was shocked when he just shook his head and grinned before sticking his foot out and pretending that he was going to trip the woman. She wondered if he had slept with the woman, but after studying her for a while she decided that it wasn't likely; she was considerably older than the women he was constantly and blatantly hitting on.

Michael eventually became aware of her scrutiny and he turned his head to look at Maria before glancing at Gabriel and then turning his attention back to the people he was with. "I hate to break the party up, but I've got some stuff to take care of. Sanchez, good luck with that assignment," he said, shaking hands with the slim Hispanic man standing to his right. "And, Stone, if you're gonna break the new kid in, be gentle." He winked at the woman leaning on a pool cue across the table. "I have a feelin' he's never been with an actual woman, so it's doubtful he has any idea what to do with his dick."

"I've been with plenty of women, Guerin," the youngest man at the table snapped.

"Not what I've heard, rookie." Michael smirked. _This was going to be so easy._

"And what've you heard?"

"That you grew up on a sheep ranch and you had your pick of the herd since there was an extreme shortage of women out in the middle of nowhere." He smirked when the kid choked on the mouthful of beer he had just swallowed and he moved to place his pool cue in the rack mounted on the wall.

The kid was outraged. "I have never - "

"Chill out, rookie," Sanchez said before muttering something in Spanish under his breath. He didn't know why Michael always had to wind up the new kids, but he always singled them out and put them through hell.

Stone shook her head and bit back a smile at Michael's merciless teasing; the man had no shame and he would torment Hawkins until the rookie agent realized that the only way to shut him up was to stop taking the bait. "You gonna be back in this week?" she asked.

"Probably." He shot a glance at Hawkins. "Tell ya what, rookie; you survive a night in Stone's bed and I'll buy the first round next time I swing by."

The younger man snorted. "Might as well give Gabriel that order now."

Michael laughed loudly at the kid's smug tone. "I think I'll just wait to see if you're still standin' next time I see you."

Stone watched him, her gaze speculative as she followed his progress across the room to the short, blond woman waiting at the bar. He paused to talk to Gabriel for several minutes before he motioned for her to walk out with him, and she wondered who the woman was and what she was doing with Michael.


	22. Chapter 21

**Part 21**

Maria looked over at the front of the bar as they drove by on their way out of the parking lot. "Do you know how the bar got its name?" she asked, unable to control her curiosity.

"What?" He turned his head to glance at the bar. "Why?"

"It's just interesting that the owner, bouncer, and the bar itself are all named after archangels. But, Azrael is the name of the archangel of death, so Azrael's Sanctuary is… interesting."

"I'd say it's appropriate," Michael said, shrugging his left shoulder. "We're all killers in the name of justice and it's a safe place to hang."

"Hmmm, I guess that would make sense. Y'know, Michael is the name of one of the archangels too."

He grunted. "I wasn't named after anything like that."

"How'd you get into this line of work?"

"Why? Not the kinda job _your_ Michael would've gotten into?" he snapped.

"Well, no, it's not a job Michael would've pursued."

"Right, because he's nothin' like me - "

"I wasn't trying to start a fight, Michael." She slouched down in her seat, readjusting the seatbelt and staring out through the windshield with a sigh. "I was just wondering how you got involved in your… profession."

Michael could feel his temper boiling just below the surface and he didn't understand it; nothing had happened to set him on edge but he could feel it just waiting to break free. "Why d'you wanna know anyway? What's it matter why I do what I do?"

"I guess it doesn't," she said with a shrug. "I was just curious." She frowned and looked at him, deciding to change the subject before he threw a fit. "Gabriel said I could start day after tomorrow."

He was surprised when she extended an olive branch instead of continuing with the topic and picking a fight. "Guess Thursday's a good day to get started. Most of the regulars are in and out durin' the week, so it'll give you a little time to get settled in." He rested his elbow on the open window and rubbed his left eyebrow. "You already got somethin' planned for dinner?" It was early in the afternoon but he was already hungry.

"Umm-hmm, I'm making homemade lasagna with salad and garlic rolls." She paused, smiling when Michael's stomach growled in response to her answer. "I made cheesecake for desert; it has a special strawberry glaze that's laced with a spicy hot sauce that I think you'll probably like."

The edge of Michael's temper dulled in response to the conversation and he felt himself calming as he listened to her talk. "You like wine with lasagna?"

"I don't know. I rarely drank at home because Michael has no tolerance for alcohol and it just didn't seem fair somehow."

Next to her, Michael was gritting his teeth at the mention of her dead lover. "Why does his name have to come up every fuckin' time we talk?" he snarled, pissed off for no reason that he could readily identify and he wasn't interested in dissecting it any further.

"Maybe because he's the only reason I'm here."

"Yeah, let's go over that again, because that story never gets old." He reached out to punch the button on the stereo, turning it up and drowning out anything she might have said. He was getting tired of constantly being reminded of the other man, being measured up to a ghost and always being found lacking in one way or another.

Maria sighed and leaned back in her seat, wondering what it was going to take to turn his mood around this time. _Dinner __might __do __the __trick,_ she thought, aware that he tended to be easier to deal with after he had eaten. Especially since after dinner he usually settled down in his chair in the living room, propped his feet up on the coffee table, and got involved with whatever sport was being aired that night. She was certain he would calm down once he had dinner and settled down for his nightly ritual, essentially forgetting about her existence while he focused on hurling obscenities at the television

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Michael stood under the pounding spray early the next morning, letting the water from the shower head beat down on his head and shoulders. He had woken up after another nightmare and tried to outrun the disturbing images, but he hadn't been able to shake them. He had even tacked on a few extra miles, hoping that if he exhausted his body his mind would follow suit, but as plans went, it hadn't been a very good one.

His mind was perfectly alert and the images wouldn't leave him alone; he had no real description for what he had seen in the nightmares. The images themselves were disturbing enough, but it was the addition of genuine fear that was making him so edgy. He didn't like to feel as if he had no control over things, but to have no control over feelings and emotions? No, that was just unacceptable. _Maria __had __some__ explaining __to __do,_ he thought as he reached for the faucet to turn the water off.

Maria was just putting the finishing touches on breakfast when Michael wandered into the kitchen. As she had predicted the night before, he had calmed down and retreated into his own little world once he had been fed, handed a beer, and settled down in his favored chair. She smiled as she thought about his predictability. _In __a __lot __of __ways __having __him __around __was __comforting; __it __was __kind __of __like __having __a __rather__ large, __moody __pet._

She glanced to the side when he opened the refrigerator at the end of the counter and had to amend her last thought. He was wearing his preferred cargo pants, but he was bare from the waist up and she couldn't stop her eyes from following several droplets of water as they dripped from the ends of his recently-showered hair to trail down along his spine. _Scratch__ that, __it __was __more__ like __having __temptation__ at __her __fingertips __every __second__ of __the __day, __and__ that __was __disturbing __on __too __many __levels __to __think __about._

Michael reached for the milk and poured it into a tall glass before scrounging around in one of the cabinets for the strawberry powder. He shook a liberal amount of the pink powder into the glass and mixed it up as he stared at the circular motion he was making with the spoon. He tossed the spoon in the sink and took a long drink of the sweetened milk, turning to lean back against the counter as he thought about the nightmare that had assaulted his mind the night before.

Maria frowned when he took a drink of the milk without cringing. _Well,__ that __was __odd,_ she thought as she watched him for several minutes. He wasn't normally tense this early in the day; as a rule he was relaxed after his morning run and shower. His expression was moody, which wasn't unusual for him, but he was pensive as he stared into space, and that was slightly odd.

"How was your night?" she asked, hoping it wouldn't set him off.

"Fine," he snapped. "You got a reason to think otherwise?" He wanted answers to his questions but he didn't want to seem too eager.

"Well, I've never seen you drink that without mixing hot sauce in it, so it stands to reason that you've got something on your mind."

"You're too fuckin' nosy." He forced the rest of the too-sweet milk down and set the glass in the sink before straightening up and stretching. He just barely managed to keep from cringing at the taste, but he wasn't going to give her the satisfaction of being right about any damn thing.

"Maybe so," she admitted as she dished scrambled eggs, bacon, and hash browns onto two plates. She reached for the pan at the back and slid the French toast onto two smaller plates before sprinkling powdered sugar and fresh strawberries over it.

"Guess it doesn't matter whether you know or not; it's your fault anyway."

Maria bristled at the implication that his problem - whatever it was - was her fault. "How so?"

"Because until you showed up I had never once had a nightmare about aliens, and now, for some fucked up reason I'm dreamin' about aliens tryin' to exterminate me." He reached for his plates, easily distinguished by the mountains of peppers, onions, and jalapenos. "Oh, and just for kicks, their skin's peelin' off throughout the whole damn thing."

_And __he __was __off __to __sit __in __front __of __the __television, __leaving __her __to __fly __solo __over __yet __another__ meal,_ she mused in annoyance. She paused as she realized what he had just said and she spoke before he could leave the room. "Wait! You had a dream about aliens whose skin was peeling off? Are you talking about the Skins?" For a moment she flashed back to the church in Santa Fe as she tried to recall what all she had told him… she had probably told him about the Skins when she was trying to convince him that she knew what she was talking about.

He jumped on that. "Skins? That's what those fuckin' things are called? Why?" She knew something and he wanted some kind of explanation for the demented images that were now stuck in his head.

"What's it worth to you?" She was under the impression that he wasn't interested in her 'fairy tale' and anything concerning her Michael.

"You wanna negotiate?" He glanced at her and shook his head. "Just tell me what I wanna know."

"Sit down and have breakfast with me like a civilized person," she said.

"Fuck that." Michael shuddered at the domestic scene that her suggestion created in his mind and walked into the living room without a backwards glance.

Maria rolled her eyes and carried her plates to the table before going back and getting a glass of juice. She was just sprinkling salt and pepper on her eggs when he appeared beside her, setting his plates down with a lot more force than necessary, and jerking a chair out. He practically threw himself into the chair and started drumming his fingers on the table expectantly as he waited for her to pick up on his cues and begin speaking.

"Well? I'm sittin' at the fuckin' table like a civilized person, so tell me what's up with those Skin things."

_Should __she __be__ concerned __because __she __was __so __happy __that __he __was __joining__ her __for __breakfast? __Even__ though __she __had __basically __had __to __blackmail __him__ in to __doing __it._ "You remember what I told you about Khivar - "

"Yeah, yeah, let's just get to the part with the freaky skin-peelin' aliens."

She made a face at him when he started shoveling food in his mouth while making a rolling motion with his right hand. _He__ had__ all__ the__ manners__ of__ a__ pig__ at__ a__ feed __trough__… __actually,__ the __pig __might __have__ better __manners.__ Why __had __she __wanted __his __company __again?_ "Anyway, if you remember, Khivar was the alien that killed the royal family on Antar - "

"Can we skip to the interesting part?" he growled around a mouthful of eggs.

Maria huffed at his impatient tone. "Fine. Khivar sent the Skins to Earth to kill the re-created royal family and to bring Vilandra back, because she was his great love, the one who sacrificed herself - "

"Okay, seriously, I'm not the slightest bit interested in the bullshit love story." He pointed at her French toast with his fork. "You gonna eat that?"

Her appetite was taking a severe nosedive while watching him eat and she shook her head as she slid the plate across the table to him. "Skins are powerful and their greatest power is probably their ability to virtually rape a person's mind, taking their memories and thoughts; if they get in your mind they can take anything they want."

Michael hid a shudder at that thought. "So, why're they called Skins?"

"They can't survive on Earth in their natural form, so they wear these husks… they have some sort of technology that allows them to genetically manipulate materials to resemble human bodies; the Skin's relationship to it is essentially parasitic and because they don't adapt well to hot weather they peel…" She trailed off when she glanced at Michael and she almost laughed at his expression of revulsion.

"That's disgusting."

_But,__ apparently __not __disgusting__ enough __to __slow __down __his __appetite __or __stop __him __from__ eating,_ she thought, shaking her head when he started in on the hash browns next. "In my universe, they came to Earth in 1950 and they were led by Khivar's second in command, Nicholas; he was the one responsible for killing Rath on Antar. Oh, and they also have devices that allow them to manipulate time, too."

"So, these Skins were on Earth in your universe to track down your aliens and retrieve the two-faced princess who betrayed everyone to be with this Khivar guy?"

"Yeah, but, there's also another faction of Skins, renegades, loyal to Rath, that infiltrated the Skins on Earth. They believed that he could've united their planet, pulled the warring factions together, and brought about peace." Maria made a face when she realized she was practically parroting Courtney's explanation. _Ewww!__ The __girl __was __a __clear __reminder __of __a__ really __rocky __spell __in __her __relationship __with __Michael __and__ she __didn't __want __to __think__ about __her __or __that __time._ She shook her head and continued with her story while he was focused on her and what she was saying. "Their intention was to dethrone Zan and put Rath in his place."

She really had his attention now. _He'd__ had__ followers?_ "Really? Loyal to me?"

"Courtney was one of the renegade Skins, but that's nothing to brag about."

Michael's ears practically perked up at her mention of the name; the inflection in her voice was enough to tell him that this Courtney person wasn't someone she liked. He suddenly remembered her commenting on the other woman… Skin… whatever, a while back and he leaned back in his chair and folded his arms over his chest. "She was fine, huh? Bet she had a great ass."

Maria glared at him. "I wouldn't know since she kept shedding everywhere… all that skin just peeling off and falling everywhere - "

"Okay, that's enough of a visual!" He couldn't hide the shudder as he stood up and carried his dishes to the sink, placing them inside without bothering to rinse them off.

"That's pretty much all I know about the Skins," she said when he looked at her expectantly.

"Huh." He opened the refrigerator door and pulled a beer out, leaning back against the counter and taking a drink before he looked at her again. His brows pulled together as he studied her, seeing the look of intense concentration on her face. "What're you thinkin' about?"

"As the rightful heir to the throne Max carried the royal seal of Antar… " _That __damn __seal!__ She __wished__ it __didn't __exist._

"All hail the King," Michael muttered sarcastically.

Maria rolled her eyes as she continued with her point. "Anyway, when he died the seal was passed on to Michael and he lost it… I mean, he just went crazy; wanting to kill everyone from the humans who knew the truth about them to Max when he came back from the dead. You would've been about 14 when Max died in your universe, so I was just wondering if you felt any differently at that age, if at some point you felt something change inside of you."

"Nope, don't remember anything like that." He smirked and nodded, knowing by her disgusted expression that she knew what was coming next. "I was already pretty wild by the time I turned 14 and about the only thing that changed was my knowledge of the opposite sex." He patted his crotch fondly before taking another swallow of beer. "Yep, that was a great fuckin' year."

Maria ignored his attempts to bait her into yet another fight about sex. "So, there was nothing that made you feel like you had more power? Nothing that made you wanna be - "

"I'm a soldier," he interrupted, wanting to get his point across. He knew what she was about to start in on - the role of the king. _No __way! __She __might__ as __well __put __a __bullet__ between__ his __eyes __because__ there__ was __no __way __he __would__ ever __become__ the __next __king__ of __Antar._ "It's what I'm good at - action, reaction, protection, and war. I have no interest in sittin' on my ass an' makin' political, economic, or diplomatic decisions; I'm not gonna concern myself with the well-being of people I don't give a fuck about. I have a job, Maria; I protect this country and all of the selfish, petty, and ungrateful people who live here. I've seen what leaders do, I see it all the time in my job, and it doesn't matter whether you're talkin' about presidents, kings, or whatever… the one thing that I do know is that I don't wanna be a leader," he concluded, hoping that she had gotten the message loud and clear.

"But you might have to!" she insisted. "What if the Antarians come looking for their king and discover that Max is dead? You're the next in line, Michael!" Maria felt bad for trying to change his mind, but it was a possibility and he should be prepared for it. She could see that being the king would be like a death sentence for him; it would be the end of who he was, the end of his freedom, but he might have to accept the title, even if it was only for a short time before passing it on to someone else. It wouldn't be forever; abdication might be possible.

"Fuck that!" he exploded. His arms and hands waved wildly as he went on. "I told you, I'm a soldier, nothin' more and nothin' less. Gimme a war and I'll fight it, but don't expect me to lead a country or some planet I have no association with. And as for the King role? It's a trap; a golden trap, but a trap nonetheless. I'll be damned if I'll sacrifice my life to their throne or anyone else's. I'll live my life the way I'm supposed to, the way I want to, and my predecessor knew that… he understood it. You said it yourself - Rath didn't want the throne despite his followers asking him to take it." _And __even __if __back __then, __on __Antar, __Rath __had__ refused__ the __title, __that __was__ telling __enough __of __the __weight __that __the __job __of __king __would __place __on __someone's__ shoulders. __He __had __been __clever__ to __refuse __it __and __to __do __what __he __was __good __at __and __what __he __wanted __to __be __- __a__soldier._

"I'm just saying - " Maria tried to protest, but he didn't give her time to finish her sentence.

"It's true that loyalty might have made a difference, but there's more than just one reason for anyone to accept a position like that. But, I can tell you one thing - Rath didn't want that role; he didn't want to lose his sanity to be the king, doin' stuff he hated, makin' decisions, conducting peace talks, economic treaties, or any of that other interior political shit! I know that!" And the fact was that it was true, he knew it in his gut. It was like Rath was waking up inside of him and speaking through him. Rath had never wanted to be the king, he had turned down the proposition to be one, and he'd bet that if his double had inherited the royal seal that it had been something that Rath had been against back on Antar.

"You might not have a choice, you know, and Michael - _my_ Michael - he wanted the job!" Maria could easily remember how cruel her Michael had been when he had been in possession of the seal and it was something that was still a sore point even after several years.

"There's always a choice." He started to pace around the kitchen, building his argument in his head. "That guy you talked about, Larek; he knows how to rule, he knows the game and the players involved. He could be the king. Hell, there are probably other resistance fighters who have been opposing Khivar, others who would be a helluva lot more deserving of that title than I am." He shook his head. "And as for _your_ Michael wantin' the job? Believe me, baby, he didn't want it. You told me he spent most of his life bein' treated like shit by that worthless asshole Hank, that he wanted to leave, and that King Max refused… is that true?"

"That's all true," she agreed.

Michael nodded, satisfied with her answer. "He never had the chance to really be the second-in-command that he was supposed to be; he was stifled, so when he inherited that seal he was power-hungry because it was somethin' he'd never had and it went straight to his head! But, he sucked at it, didn't he?" Her silence was answer enough. "I can see it on your face. He wasn't good at it because that's not who we are, little girl." He leaned in close to her, staring into her eyes to make sure she was getting the message. "Get that through your thick skull. Rath, your Michael, me… we aren't king material. Never have been and never will be. We're soldiers, and that's it." He tossed his empty bottle in the trash can and retrieved another one from the refrigerator, twisting the cap off and taking a long drink. "So, what's the deal with all this king talk, huh? Your Michael got the title and you got turned on by playin' Queen to his King?"

Maria forced down the hurt that tried to surface at his comment. "That's not true! You think I'm that shallow that I'd want him to be king just to - "

"Please," he scoffed, ignoring her hurt tone, "impressionable girls dig royalty. They don't see the work or the sacrifice behind that golden image; they just hear the word 'king' and practically trip over their own feet to get to the poor dumbass who's become their unwitting prey."

Maria saw red at Michael's little speech. "Well, that is not a description of me. For your information, I fell for Michael when he was living in a trailer park on the wrong side of the tracks. He didn't have a job, he didn't have any money, and he was angry and just plain mean a lot of the time, but I could see that underneath all that he had a soul and a good heart, and I fell for him. There was no king or second-in-command bullshit; he was just Michael from the crappy trailer park at the edge of town and I loved him!"

Michael remained silent when she finally began to wind down from her rant and he watched her as she withdrew into herself. Hell, maybe she wasn't just some superficial girl who had fallen for her superhuman alien; maybe she was just that Maria girl who fell for the guy from the wrong side of the tracks, the girl who had been able to see beyond his past and present to see the real guy lurking behind the barriers he had created to protect himself. And maybe he needed to make his escape before he let himself get drawn any further into her drama.

"I'm gonna go work in the shop for a while."

Maria leaned back in her chair and stared at her plate after he had left the room and a few minutes later she heard the patio door slide shut. "So much for civilized behavior," she muttered.

In the shop Michael was humming along with the radio as he used a wrench to loosen a bolt, his mind occupied with the things Maria had told him. _Were__ there__ still __Skins __-__ good__ or __bad __- __in __his __universe?__ Would __it __be __worth __it __to __look __for __them __to __get __information __from __them?__ What __if __they __knew __why __he __had __been __feeling __off __lately?__ Maybe__ it __wasn't __worth __finding __them, _he thought, remembering what she had said about their ability to get inside people's heads. _The __last __thing __he __wanted __was __for __some __fucked __up, __skin-peeling-off __alien __to __get __in __his __mind __and__ start __poking__ around._

_What__ had __caused__ him __to __dream __about__ the __Skins __when __he __had __never __heard __of __them?_ he wondered. _Maria __hadn't __mentioned __them __during __her __little __speech __in __Santa __Fe; __all __she__ had __said__ was __that__ there __were __some __pretty __bad __aliens __out __there __- __he __definitely __would've __remembered __if __she __had __mentioned __aliens __with __peeling __skin!_

_Nah,_ he decided, _he __must've __seen __them __when __she __kissed __him __after __telling __him __her __story __in __Santa __Fe.__ That __was __the __only __plausible __explanation __for __him __dreaming __of __something __he __couldn't __possibly __know __about; __he __must've __seen __it __during__ all__ those __flashes._ He shook his head and went back to working on the engine, determined to focus on it and nothing else.


	23. Chapter 22

**Part 22**

After six weeks of working at Azrael's Sanctuary, Maria knew all of the waitresses and customers by name. Each one had a story, but few were willing to tell it despite her willingness to listen. Raphael was the most talkative, but she had quickly realized that his ramblings weren't random at all; despite his seemingly easygoing manner he was very careful of how much information he revealed.

Gabriel was an enigma and she wished she knew the real story of his past. She had heard a dozen different stories about the man and the only thing that remained consistent each time was the description of him as an assassin with ice in his veins. That seemed so wrong based on what she had witnessed of the gentle giant's behavior. When he wasn't behind the bar he was mingling with his customers, talking and laughing right along with them. But it was in the early hours of the morning when they were cleaning up after closing that her curiosity really took notice.

He always sat at the table in the darkest corner of the bar, his big hands curled around a glass of single-malt Scotch while he stared into space. His eyes told their own story though, filled with a sadness too great to put into words; some nights the expression was replaced with anger and other nights regret took its place. Whatever ghosts lurked in his shadowed past, weren't benevolent and it was easy to see that he was tormented by the memories.

Most nights Raphael hung around to lock up and see the waitresses safely to their cars, waiting until the parking lot was empty before going back inside to help Gabriel up the stairs to his apartment if he'd had too much to drink and he needed it. Maria hadn't witnessed such a scene but she had overheard Raphael and Stone discussing it at closing one night. Twice the bouncer hadn't been there, and Stone had stepped in and handled things, making sure no one bothered the waitresses or harassed them on the way to their cars as they left for the night.

Stone was a paradox and Maria couldn't make up her mind about the woman. She had learned that the woman and Michael shared the same profession, but she still wasn't sure if they had ever shared a bed. She had watched them a couple of times when they had been in the bar at the same time, studying their interaction with each other, but nothing they had said or done so far had given her any clues about a past sexual history.

The few times that Stone had been at the bar and Michael had been elsewhere, the woman had sat at the counter and subtly pried for information. The strange thing was that Stone didn't seem to be prying because she was checking out the competition or because she was jealous, she just seemed to be genuinely curious. Although she hadn't appreciated it when Maria had asked some questions of her own and the woman had been quick to inform her that her past was no one's business but her own. After that, Maria hadn't bothered attempting any further conversation with Stone.

Sanchez had turned out to be very nice, even though he rarely spoke unless someone engaged him in conversation. He was an interrogator for the Company, but unlike most of the others, he didn't talk about what he did when he was away from home. She had been surprised to learn that he was married and had several children. She had learned that a lot of the predominantly male patrons of Azrael's were divorced, the rest were single, and they all bragged about their sexual conquests. Sanchez just nursed his Tequila and observed them, winding down in his own way before returning home to his family.

Bootleg was a computer expert and his ability to hack into any system in existence had saved the lives of most of them on one occasion or another. Tall, thin, skin that rarely saw the sun, and thick glasses; he looked the part of the consummate computer nerd, but she had quickly learned to not be fooled by their appearances.

Axel was the man who handled their field equipment, fitting the vehicles with bullet-proof windows and panels as well as creating specially-designed compartments that hid multiple weapons. He was short, bald, heavily tattooed, and had a nose ring, but not a single person in the bar messed with him.

Novak and Hawkins were the rookies in the bunch, and their inexperience often got them in trouble with the others because neither of them had learned to keep their mouths shut. Novak had the added problem of not knowing how to keep his hands to himself and he had been called on his behavior more than once but he had yet to learn his lesson.

Michael didn't spend much time with the rest of the guys who frequented the bar and she was pretty sure Novak and Hawkins would fall off of his radar as soon as he grew bored with messing with them. He knew everyone there but he tended to stick with a select few when he came in and for the most part he was usually relaxed when he was there.

There was an unspoken code that existed among them; a sense of duty, honor, and pride that bound them together. It wasn't the kind of thing that an outsider could ever hope to understand, but it was something that could be felt when in their company.

She was delivering another round of drinks to the band onstage when a commotion from the other side of the bar caught her attention and she quickly weaved her way through the tables to see what was going on.

Michael was leaning back against one end of the pool table, long legs stretched out in front of him as he grinned infuriatingly. She knew that expression - it was the one he wore whenever he had succeeded in pissing someone off… intentionally.

"I don't know what you're getting pissed off about," Michael drawled lazily. "I said I'd buy the first round."

"Yeah, after you implied - again - that I don't know what the fuck to do with my dick."

The grin didn't slip as Michael shook his head. "Hey, look, rookie, I concede defeat; you lasted a night in Stone's bed."

"More than one night, asshole."

Michael took a drink of his beer and set the bottle back down beside his right hip. "Well, good for you. I'm glad to hear everything's sheep-shape."

"What?"

His eyebrows rose innocently. "What?"

"Did you just say…" Hawkins gritted his teeth and took a deep breath. "What'd you just say?"

Michael frowned as if he were actually trying to recall his words. "Just that I'm glad to hear everything's ship-shape."

Hawkins narrowed his eyes and studied the agent for several long seconds before he turned away, but he whirled right back around when Axel and Bootleg started up a chorus of _baa-baas_." "You think this is funny?" he snapped angrily.

"What's the problem, rookie?" Axel asked. "He's just fuckin' with you."

Hawkins stupidly walked right into Michael's space and ignored the growled warning to back off. "I don't know what your problem is, but if you've got a problem with my relationship with Stone you can just - " He took several steps back when the other man started to laugh. "What's so goddamned funny?" he demanded.

"Hey, Stone, you wanna help me out here?" Michael called over his shoulder.

Stone took her time walking around the table to join them. She had been watching their pissing contest for the last half hour and she had been waiting for the inevitable. Hawkins was young and naïve enough to think that a couple rounds of sex equaled a relationship. She had known going in that he wasn't going to be able to stick to the rules, but it was the perfect opportunity to toughen him up a little bit. He had the chance to become a damn good agent if he learned to shut his emotions off and focus on the goal, and this was going to be lesson number one.

"What's goin' on, boys?"

Michael resumed his earlier position, leaning on the pool table and he glanced at Stone as he spoke. "Your boy here seems to think the two of you're in a," he held his hands up to make air quotes, "relationship." He snorted. "Dumbass probably thinks he's as good in bed as I am."

"As good?" Stone shook her head. "No."

Hawkins stood up straighter and he smiled smugly. "Y'hear that, Guerin? I'm better than you are."

Michael smirked. "All I heard 'er say was you're not as good as me."

"Whatever. You've got your interpretation and I've got the truth."

"Sounds like you've pulled the wool over your own eyes."

Hawkins crossed his arms over his chest and glared at the others when they snickered. "That's enough with the fuckin' sheep jokes." He turned his head to look at Stone. "Would you just tell him so he'll get off my back?"

"Tell him what?"

He stood there for nearly a full minute as he tried to wrap his mind around what was happening. "Tell him we're in a relationship and that I'm a better fuck than he ever was."

"You don't want this announced publicly, rookie," Sanchez warned him. He had been one of them long enough to know what Stone was doing and why it was necessary. Busting the kid's chops over what he mistakenly thought was a real relationship was one thing, but humiliating him over his performance in the bedroom was a whole other matter and he didn't think it was necessary.

He shook his head when the kid stubbornly insisted on having Stone declare which man was the better lover. _Well, he had tried to warn him,_ he thought as he downed a shot of Tequila and watched the show along with everyone else present. _Some people only learned the hard way, and unfortunately, Hawkins was one of them._

"Let's just get this relationship nonsense outta the way first, Hawkins," Stone said as she leaned in to kiss Michael right in front of him. "I told you that first night that I don't do relationships. We're not dating, we're not exclusive, and you're not the only man I've fucked in the last couple of months."

"What?" He didn't know if he was more shocked by her denial of their relationship of by the fact that she had just kissed Guerin and then looked him right in the eye and said that he was just a one-night stand. "But, the nights we spent together - "

"We didn't spend any nights together," she denied, shaking her head. "We hooked up twice and both times we went to a hotel. You're not a total zero in the sack, but you're still young; you have no stamina and you're only good for one round."

"How would you know? You didn't stick around to find out."

"I stuck around long enough."

"What, an hour?"

Michael snickered. "You couldn't get it up again after an hour?" He held his hands up in a bid for silence. "Okay, okay, so you have a longer recovery time than some of us. But, I'm sure you were getting her off while you were workin' up to round two, right?"

"What?"

Michael feigned shock. "Oh, wow, so you both got off once and that was it?" He took a drink of his beer before glancing at Stone. "Only once? Seriously?"

"Maybe once is all it takes," Hawkins snapped.

"That may be true for _you_, but trust me when I tell you she's not interested in a guy who's only gonna make her come once and then call it a night."

"Stone?"

_"Masochist,"_ Sanchez muttered under his breath as he stood up and stretched. "I'm out for the night, you guys; I can't watch the rest of this massacre." He rolled his eyes when his announcement was ignored as the others waited to see what happened next.

"Yes, Hawkins, if you really wanna know, Michael's a better fuck than you are; he knows more about women than you'll probably ever learn."

"So, you'd rather be with a guy who won't commit - "

"I'm not interested in a commitment that lasts beyond the sunrise; he understands that. I don't want pretty flowers, fancy dinners, or a bunch of promises about love and forever because it's all an illusion. He knows the rules and he sticks to them; he doesn't hang around hoping we'll have breakfast together while sharing the morning paper."

"And you're fine with that? Then how do you explain your relationship with Azrael - "

_That was a mistake,_ Michael thought, shaking his head at the rookie's stupidity. Stone moved like lightening, her right hand reaching between the younger man's legs to grab his balls and twist them viciously. _Christ, she was makin' __**his**__ balls hurt!_ He winced sympathetically - not for Hawkins, because he had been stupid enough to say what he had said, but he knew how strong Stone's grip was and there was no way it wasn't gonna leave a painful reminder even after a couple of days.

After a moment of shocked silence in the wake of Azrael's name being spoken, business continued as usual and everyone went back to their own conversations with the exception of the three people at the pool table in the middle of the room.

Maria watched in surprise when Michael moved his right foot just enough that the top of his boot rested against Stone's ankle and a moment later the woman released her death grip on Hawkins' crotch. No one said a word to him as he snatched up his jacket and carefully walked out of the bar.

"Forget him," Michael snapped. He was expecting it when Stone turned around and kissed him again, and he let himself get caught up in it, fully aware of the woman watching him from across the room.

_Well, the question of whether Michael and Stone had ever been lovers had definitely been answered,_ Maria thought bitterly.

"Everything okay?"

Maria looked up when Gabriel spoke beside her and she wondered how a man his size moved so quietly. "Yeah, I'm just gonna…" she motioned behind her. "Check and see if anyone needs anything."


	24. Chapter 23

**Part 23**

Gabriel moved back behind the counter and reached for a recently-washed rack of shot glasses, checking them over before sliding them into place under the counter. He reached for the stool he kept in the corner and sat on it as his gaze tracked over the waitresses, doing a mental headcount to make sure they were all accounted for. Most of the girls didn't deal with the customers beyond asking for their orders, more comfortable with limited interaction than they were getting involved in any kind of conversation.

Most of them came off of the streets, or recommended by Father Augustine, the priest who ran the women's shelter a few miles away. His hand came up to rub the crucifix that hung from the chain around his neck along with his dog tags, reminders of his life before and his endless search for absolution since his decision to retire.

He had seen too much in his years with the Company and each mission had taken a little more of his heart and soul, eating away at his humanity. He had tried to become the cold, unfeeling automaton they wanted him to be in order to complete his assignments without forming any emotional attachments that could compromise the mission, but after almost twenty years he had resigned. Too many times over the years he had seen innocents sacrificed for the good of the mission, forced to stand back and let it happen because if the death of one innocent resulted in saving a thousand, it was considered a successful job. His last assignment had been more than he had been able to stomach and he had resigned, knowing that in addition to forfeiting his soul, his hesitation had made him a liability in the Company's eyes and another mission like that would result in him becoming a target for one of their snipers.

He had been seconds away from blowing his cover and compromising the entire mission his last time out, but his loyalty to the Company and the oath he had sworn had pulled him through at the last second. The mission had been a success, and no one had cared about the innocent blood that had been spilled, but it still haunted him to this day. It had been the most gruesome torture he had ever seen anyone put through and the memory of the pregnant village woman's screams could still be heard in his nightmares. He knew there was no forgiveness for what he had done; he should have stepped in and stopped it from happening, so many times over the years, but he had always upheld his duty to ensure the success of the mission.

Father Augustine had heard his confessions, torn from the depths of his tortured soul when an alcohol-induced decision had forced him to seek absolution from the man of God. Despite the Father's assurances that his soul could be saved from an eternity of damnation, he had his doubts and he had decided to do whatever he could to make up for his past. The girls who worked for him were given a safe place stay in a large boarding house not far away, with a woman who made sure they were taken care of during their stay.

The woman had been recommended by Father Augustine when he had learned of Gabriel's intentions, and he had liked her immediately. She was close to his age, maybe a few years younger, divorced, and alone. They had struck up a friendship as well as a partnership of sorts; in exchange for providing room and board at a reduced rate for the girls who worked for him, he spent his time off helping her renovate the old house. Even though they were complete opposites they had become very good friends over the past few years, working together to help young women get off of the streets, out of bad situations, and back on their own two feet. The women never stayed for very long, a few months at most while they found their strength and learned to stand on their own again.

The sound of someone calling his name brought him out of his thoughts and he lifted his head to look at the woman standing on the other side of the counter. "Whatcha need, Stone?"

"A couple beers." She nodded towards the man waiting near the door, letting Gabriel know that one of the beers should be non-alcoholic.

"What's goin' on with you an' Hawkins?" he asked as he retrieved the bottles and removed the caps.

"Nothin' that I can't handle." She smiled fondly at the overprotective bar owner as she accepted the cold bottles.

"And his comment about…?" He let the question trail off, knowing there was no reason to mention her dead lover by name.

"You worry too much, big man."

He shook his head and was turning to go back to his perch when he noticed Maria at the opposite end of the counter watching Stone walk outside with Guerin. He wasn't sure what their relationship was exactly, but since she had started working for him the man had been there almost every single time she had a shift.

He had finally asked Guerin about it because the man came around on occasion, but in the month and a half that Maria had been working at the bar he had spent more time there than he had the entire time the place had been open. Gabriel hadn't bought the weak excuses the man had given, and he doubted that it was a coincidence that Guerin was spending more time at the bar now that Maria was working there.

He chuckled to himself as he settled down on his stool once more, watching Maria as she went back to serving the customers even though she kept shooting lingering glances at the door Guerin and Stone had left through a few minutes earlier. The young woman liked to talk and it hadn't taken long for her to discover which of the customers were willing to converse and which ones wanted to be left alone.

Over the next couple of hours as closing time came and went her gaze strayed to the door frequently. She carried on her end of the conversation with some of the waitresses, but Gabriel could see that her heart wasn't in it; normally she was animated and talked a mile a minute, but since the kiss between Guerin and Stone she had been withdrawn and her thoughts were obviously elsewhere.

His eyes followed her as she gathered her jacket and purse, walking outside with the other girls under Raphael's watchful gaze. He reached for the half-empty bottle of Scotch on the table in front of him and refilled his glass as he prepared to face his ghosts in the silence that followed closing time.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Maria pulled into the garage and glared at the empty spot where the motorcycle _should_ have been parked. She had really hoped that he would be home when she got there, but apparently he had decided to spend the night with Stone.

"Self-centered asshole," she muttered as she walked into the house and slammed the door behind her.

They had been living together for two months and she was no closer to discovering why the Granolith had sent her to this universe or how she was going to get back home to her Michael. She had fallen into a routine since getting the job at Azrael's Sanctuary; she and Michael still argued about everything under the sun, but they had actually had several conversations that were civil on the rare occasion when they weren't arguing. She was getting to know him little by little, but nights like this one always reminded her of her situation.

She had finally managed to get him trained so that when it was time to eat he came to the kitchen table and they ate together. The man had an appetite that wouldn't quit; he ate everything she cooked and he had quickly grown fond of the dishes that combined sweet and spicy foods. It hadn't taken long for her to realize that his table manners weren't as animalistic as she had been led to believe during their first few meals together, something she should've known. If he protected movie stars, politicians, and dignitaries, he had to have good manners when the time called for it; his boss wasn't going to send him on jobs like that with the table manners he had displayed in front of her. She couldn't believe that she had fallen for that act once she had realized that he had been hoping she would be so disgusted with his behavior that she'd be content to leave him to his meals in front of the television.

Convincing him to let her use the Range Rover hadn't been easy, but after a while he had accepted that she wasn't going to take off and he had stopped insisting on driving her to work. The downside to that was not knowing where he was or who he was with when she wasn't home. She tried to not think about that, but it wasn't going to be so easy since she had seen him kissing Stone and she had watched them leave together.

She dropped the keys on the counter out of habit and retrieved one of the ice-cold bottles of beer from the refrigerator, uncapping it before going into the living room and reaching for the television remote. After several minutes of scrolling through a ridiculous number of channels and not finding a single thing worth watching she turned it off and threw the remote back in his chair. She began to pace in an effort to relax, but after a while she gave up on that and went to find something to eat.

Fifteen minutes of looking through the cabinets and the refrigerator left her without finding a single interesting thing to eat. She didn't know why she was bothering anyway; she wasn't the slightest bit hungry, she was just looking for something to do that would keep her busy and that would help her relax at the same time. She paced around the house for a while, but the tension was only getting worse and if it continued she was going to end up with a vicious headache.

_A bath and some soothing music,_ she thought. _That would help._ She walked to her room to get her things together so she could go take a bath and her gaze slid over the picture that still sat on the nightstand, but was now encased in a sterling silver frame. Keeping busy was a necessity and it kept her mind from going places that she couldn't let it go; left unoccupied it reminded her of how much she missed talking to her best friend, Liz, and how she even missed Kyle telling corny jokes and explaining Buddhism and enlightenment to anyone who would listen.

She carried her robe into the bathroom, hanging it on the hook behind the door before turning the water on. After testing the water and deciding that the temperature was just right, she plugged the drain and tossed some bath salts in. While she was waiting she wandered into the living room to get one of the CD's that Michael favored, carrying it back into his bedroom and sliding it into the stereo system. She adjusted the volume and walked back into the bathroom, taking a long drink from the bottle in her right hand, without even noticing the bitter taste as she swallowed the amber liquid. It was a habit that she had picked up from Michael; he had offered her one the first night he had joined her on the back deck and they had carried on a semi-civil conversation. Over time she had started to acquire a taste for the drink and she usually had one when she got home from work.

Maria reached out to turn the water off as soon as it reached the level she wanted and then moved to put the bottle on the counter so she could strip out of her clothes. She slid into the bathtub, hoping that it would take her mind off of Michael and what he was doing. _Or who_, her mind taunted, quickly supplying her with a mental picture of him kissing Stone to go along with the thought.

It took very little time before she decided that the music was not helping her to relax. It was having the opposite effect as it created a seductive soundtrack to the images playing in her head. Her imagination was creatively supplying a wide array of possible scenes and she could quite easily see Michael kissing Stone; not the way they had at the bar, but the way her Michael had kissed her… deep, hard, with an edge of desperation at times, but always tempered with gentleness and love. She could picture him slowly removing her clothes, his big, rough hands caressing every inch of bare skin as it was revealed to his hungry gaze.

In her mind it was getting more and more difficult to separate the two men, but in this scenario it was impossible. Michael Guerin belonged to her, regardless of space and time, and the thought of him making love with any other woman made her physically ill. It felt like it had been years since she had been with him, since she had kissed him and made love with him.

If she didn't discover why the Granolith had sent her here she wasn't going to be able to go home and she would lose her chance to be with him again. If she couldn't go home she was going to lose her Michael; he wouldn't even be alive in their universe. The need to be with him again, to experience the feelings and emotions that he created within her was a physical ache and she quickly shoved them back into the little box where she kept them under lock and key, hoping to stop the hysteria that she could feel building.

Her thoughts automatically went back to Michael and Stone and anger immediately resurfaced as she imagined them making love. It was a safer emotion to deal with and it wasn't exactly a hardship to get mad at him. Her temper was building as the bath water cooled and by the time she stepped out of the bathtub she had worked herself up into a very bad mood. She was ready for a fight and she was sure he would oblige since he was always easily provoked.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Michael took a drink from the chilled bottle he was holding as his gaze followed Stone around the pool. They had stopped to buy a couple of six-packs after leaving the bar, riding around for a while before they had stopped at one of the more expensive hotels near the outskirts of the city. Neither of them had been interested in having sex; their sexual history consisted of stolen moments in the middle of war zones and in the immediate aftermath of missions where they had barely made it out alive. Sex between them was always in-the-moment, when the need for the affirmation of life overrode everything else; it had never been based on anything more than that and neither of them was interested in hooking up outside of those occasional moments.

They hadn't gotten a room at the hotel because their relationship had never extended to spending a night together outside of missions. Michael wasn't interested in any kind of intimacy and, like him, Stone didn't get involved in relationships; when they weren't working they hung out on occasion but they never took things to that level. The two kisses at the bar were about as close to sex as they had ever gotten outside of those rare times when they were in the field and a mission got too tense or just went all wrong.

He turned his head to the side when the gate at the pool entrance opened, the well-oiled hinges not making a sound. He glared at the young couple as they stumbled inside, limbs tangled together, giggling and shushing each other, and he rolled his eyes at them. They sobered when he cleared his throat, their startled gazes staring at the gun and badge lying on the lounger between his spread knees. "Get lost," he growled.

"Hey, we've got a right to be here," the young man stated adamantly.

Michael shook his head when the kid attempted to put on a brave face in front of his girlfriend. "Sign says the pool's closed after eleven, and according to my watch it's well after midnight."

"Well, you're here."

"And I have a gun; do you really wanna continue this discussion?" 

"Y'know you're an asshole, right?" Stone asked when the young couple left, her voice raised to carry from the other side of the pool.

"Like I care." He slouched down further, the soles of his boots scraping against the concrete as he extended his legs. He watched her, his eyes trailing over her body appreciatively as she stripped out of her clothes and dove into the pool naked. Stone was nearly twelve years older than him, but the woman kept her body in perfect shape; he had seen women half her age who didn't look anywhere near as good as she did. She wasn't drop-dead gorgeous, and he had definitely been with women who were more beautiful, but she was completely comfortable in her own skin and she was confident in her abilities, and that only added to the overall package.

"So, when're you gonna tell me what's goin' on between you and the little motormouth?" Stone asked when she surfaced at the edge of the pool in front of him.

He leaned over to place the empty bottle in the cardboard carrier and pulled a fresh one out, uncapping it and dropping it on the ground. "Who says there's anything to tell?"

"I've been watchin' the two of you and she's not under your protection; I know that's the story goin' around, but that's not it."

"You're so sure about that?"

"Rumor has it that you've been there pretty much every night since she started working at the bar, and I know for a fact that before that you weren't a frequent customer. As I recall, you prefer that dump closer to your place where you can pick up women for a quick tumble in the sheets before heading back home. I also know that she's driving your vehicle and she's not staying over at the boarding house with the rest of Gabriel's girls." She smiled knowingly and pushed away from the edge to swim a few laps around the perimeter of the pool before returning to her spot in front of him. "Only stands to reason that if she's driving your vehicle and not staying with the girls that she'd have to be stayin' out at your place… and, Michael, if I recall correctly you've never even taken a one-night-stand home with you, so what would make you let this girl stay under your roof for an indefinite amount of time?"

Michael shrugged, neither confirming nor denying her observations.

"You're attracted to her," she guessed.

"Yeah, that's what it is," he muttered sarcastically.

Stone snorted at his tone. "Like I said, I've been watchin' you, and while she watches you when she thinks no one's looking…" She grinned. "You're doin' the same thing. It's pretty obvious that you haven't slept together, and I've never known you to spend this much time with a woman that you weren't fuckin'. Come to think of it, you've never spent this much time with a woman that you _were_ fuckin'."

"You think ambushin' Hawkins like that was a good idea?"

She accepted the subject change without blinking an eye, motioning at the six-pack that belonged to her. She had gotten away with that conversation longer than she would have thought possible, so she took the bottle he leaned forward to hand her and took a long drink. "Hawkins has the makings of a damn good agent, Michael; he's got great instincts in the field, but he needs to be more focused. He's young and he lets his emotions influence his actions." She set the bottle down and crossed her arms on the still-warm concrete, propping her chin on them as she watched him. "That's an interesting question considering the way you kept baiting him."

He chuckled. "He had it comin'." He leaned back in the lounger and stared up at the sky. "I can't believe you fucked that little bastard… twice! If he's that bad in the sack, why'd you bother givin' him a second go-round?"

"Had to have all my facts straight before I busted his chops; he's a mouthy little bastard and you enjoy fuckin' with him, so I knew he'd eventually say the wrong thing and you'd call him on it."

"It's nice that I'm so predictable," he muttered.

Stone regarded him solemnly, thinking about him and the new waitress at the bar, but she only said, "Maybe you're not as predictable as you think you are." She pushed away from the wall to swim a few more laps before calling it a night.


	25. Chapter 24

**Part 24**

Michael was humming to himself as he entered the house, locking the door behind him before dropping his keys and wallet on the counter. He was reaching for the refrigerator door when his eyes were drawn to the two key rings lying next to each other beside his wallet. _That__ just __looked__ a __little __too__… __domestic._ He frowned and pushed Maria's keys further down the counter, making sure there was plenty of space between them. Feeling slightly better he retrieved a bottle of beer from the refrigerator and removed the cap, tossing it in the trash and taking a long drink. He didn't even have time to enjoy the flavor before the bane of his existence spoke from behind him and ruined the moment.

"Well, look who finally came home," Maria drawled, as she leaned in the doorway and watched him. "Hmmm, and you even showered this time. How considerate of you."

Michael could feel his temper responding to her taunting tone and he slowly turned to look at her. "What the fuck are you bitchin' about now?"

_He __had __to__ ask? __She __was __bitching __because__ he __was __going __around__ acting __like __a __dumbass! __Instead__ of __helping __her __find __out __why __she __was __here, __or __focusing __on __his __alien __side __that __he __had __ignored__ for __so __long, __he __was __running __around__ sleeping __with __any __available __uterus! __Well, __she __wasn't __gonna__ just __stay __around __here __and __keep __her __mouth__ shut. __She __had __a __few __home__ truths __for __him __and __for __once __he __was __damn __well __going __to __listen __to __her __list__ them__ off._ "Do you always go crawling back to her? You have a bad experience with a woman like you did a few weeks back, so you resort to having sex with women Stone's age? You have a hard time satisfying a woman and your answer to that problem is to crawl into bed with a woman fifteen or twenty years older than you? I would say that older women must be more forgiving, but in her case, somehow I doubt it. She verbally castrated that guy Hawkins, and then turned around and stuck her tongue down your throat."

"Yeah? Well, if he could fuck worth a damn she probably would've stuck her tongue down his throat." He started to pace, trying to calm the fury that he could feel surging to life inside of him.

"That is not the point!" she snapped.

"No, the point is that none of this is any of your goddamned business!" _Who __did __she __think __she __was, __mocking__ his __sexual__ performance?__ And __it __was __one __thing __for __her __to __badmouth __the __usual __women __he __fucked,__ but__ Stone __was __above__ her __insults; __the __woman__ could __be __a __cold-hearted __bitch,__ but __she __had __integrity __and __he __trusted __her. __That __couldn't __be __said __of __very __many __people __and __he __didn't __appreciate __Maria __lumping __her __in __with __the__ rest __of __the__ women __he __had __fucked. _"You have no rights whatsoever to even have an opinion about the women I fuck!"

"I don't need your permission to have an opinion."

_God, __the __woman __was__ drivin' __him__ up __the __fuckin' __wall! __Always __talkin', __always__ protestin', __always __wantin'__ to __have __the __last __damn __word; __it __didn't __matter __what __the __topic __was. __Well, __not__ this __time__… __she __had __no __rights __where __he __was__ concerned! _"We're not married, either, so as far as I know, who I fuck doesn't concern you and you have no right to nag me every minute of the day."

Maria snorted disdainfully. "Like I would ever marry someone like you."

Michael's temper was quickly approaching the boiling point. _For__ the __past __two __months__… __maybe__ even __a __little __longer, __she __had __been__ constantly __reminding __him __that __he __wasn't __her__ precious __Michael; __that__ he __wasn't __as __good__ as __the __other __man, __that __she __would__ never__ cheat __on __Mr. __Perfect __- __especially __with__ him__ -__ and __now __here __she__ was, __playing __the __role __of __the __nagging __wife. __Obviously__ she __had __reached __the __next__ stage__ of __her __insanity, __because__ suddenly __he__ and__ his __counterpart __seemed__ to __be __one __person. __Out__ of__ nowhere __she __was __acting__ like __she __and__ the __other __Michael __had __been __married,__ but __somehow__ she __was __confusing__ him __with __the __other __man, __and __he __was __getting __a __headache __trying __to __figure __it __all __out._

She had been uptight and defending her decision to be faithful to a dead guy every since she had rather brutally turned him down and now she was yelling at him and treating him like _he_had cheated on her. Hell, if he had to deal with the shitty part of relationships, the accusations, the nagging wife at home, the constant bitching, why couldn't he enjoy some of the perks? Like having sex on a regular basis?

"How do you have sex with random women?" Maria asked, her tone biting. "How can you be so indiscriminate - "

"How do you not know when to shut up? Me an' you, we're not involved; as you've pointed out on numerous occasions, I'm not your Michael!" he shouted, feeling something unfamiliar inside of him snap. His eyes widened when a frying pan shot off of its hook and flew across the room, slamming into the doorframe when Maria ducked to avoid it. _What__ the __fuck?_ His gaze shot to Maria where she had crouched down to avoid being hit and several emotions hit him at once - anger, fear, concern, and relief. _She__ hadn't__ been __hit; __she__ had__ gotten __out __of __the __way __in __time, __but __what __if __she__ hadn't __reacted__ quickly __enough?_

Maria stared at the frying pan for several long minutes before she stood up and walked out of the room without another word. She retreated to her bedroom and shut the door, leaning back against it and sliding down to sit on the floor.

Michael slowly crossed the room and leaned down to pick up the pan, transferring it to his left hand as he straightened back up. Reaching up, his fingers traced over the depression created in the wood where the frying pan had impacted it. _Fuck, __he __hadn't __meant __to __do __that! _He couldn't remember ever losing control like that; he was always careful to keep a strong hold on whatever it was inside of him that caused things like that to happen. This was different though… something about her had caused that tenuous thread on his control to snap. He had never felt the swirling maelstrom build so quickly, or been unable to contain it, and he had a bad feeling that it was connected to Maria.

He carefully and quietly set the pan on the stove and moved through the house, checking all of the locks and turning off lights as he made his way back to his bedroom. He paused at the door to her bedroom, his left hand coming up to briefly rest against the wood; there was nothing he could say that would change what had happened, but something inside of him felt… weird.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Several hours later he gave up on sleep and prowled around the house restlessly, unable to shake the unsettled feelings clawing at him. He was a lot of things - cold, cruel, uncaring, and unfeeling, but he would never intentionally hurt a woman and he hoped she knew that much about him.

He turned a lamp on when he passed through the living room again and he threw himself down on the couch as he looked around at the subtle changes that had taken place in his house over the past couple of months. Instead of just blinds, curtains hung over the windows, colorful accent pillows adorned the furniture, lacy things had been placed on every available flat surface, and scented candles sat atop them.

Each new addition had only been added after an argument between them and somehow, despite the fact that he owned the house and everything in it, she had gotten her way on just about everything. He could _feel_ a difference in the house since she had moved in and while he wouldn't admit it to anyone else it wasn't all that bad having a woman around the place. _It__ would __definitely __be __better __if__ they__ were __fuckin' __like __bunnies,__ but, __even __without __that __particular __perk, __it __was __okay __most __of __the __time._

His gaze turned downward and he looked at his hands, feeling regret wash over him as his thoughts once more turned back to the reason for his bout of insomnia. He stood up after a while and wandered back down the hall that led to the bedrooms, pausing in front of her door for several minutes before he reached out and turned the knob quietly. He opened the door and peered around it, checking to see if she was asleep and stepping inside once he was sure she was.

He walked around the bed and crouched down beside it, studying her features in the darkness. She rarely looked peaceful while she slept and he was pretty sure he was responsible for the disturbed expression on her face this time. As usual, she was reaching out across the empty space beside her, searching for the man who had been taken from her, the man who was obviously so much more to her than just a lover.

He rubbed his right hand over his tee shirt before laying it on the bed, not far from the edge. Like a heat-seeking missile zeroing in on its target, her hand found his within seconds. He had lost count of the number of times he had crept into her bedroom and done this very thing; he didn't understand why he did it, but the simple action spoke to something deep inside of him that he didn't acknowledge in the cold light of day. Once she had made contact her expression slipped into something resembling peace and the moment she calmed, that thing inside of him responded in kind.

Despite the early hour the sun wasn't making its way across the eastern horizon when he crept out of her bedroom and closed the door behind him. It was a clear indicator of impending rain and by the time he had changed into his running clothes and stretched the first clap of thunder was rolling across the sky.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

It rained all day and Michael spent hours out in the shop working on the motorcycles with the stereo turned up to drown out the noise created by the storm. He didn't bother going inside for breakfast or lunch, choosing to hide out in the shop instead. He wasn't sure what to say to Maria after what had happened the night before; he wasn't the type to apologize and he sure as hell wasn't wrong for getting mad about her accusations towards Stone.

He reached for a new socket, switching it out with the one already attached to the ratchet before going back to work. He had been going over everything that had happened the night before and he still didn't understand how his powers had gotten out of control like that. He shook his head and dropped a handful of bolts into a pan of cleaning fluid on the counter beside the disassembled engine. _He__ had __to __find __something __else __to __think __about __before __he __did __something__ stupid, _he thought.

Maria moved from room to room for the most of the day, unsettled by the fight she'd had with Michael. If she'd had any doubts that he was pissed off, his absence at breakfast and lunch had given her all the confirmation she needed. As the day wore on she started dinner and did a couple of loads of laundry before moving into the living room to straighten things up.

She stood at the patio doors and watched the rain pouring from the overcast sky, her thoughts on the night before. She knew she had pushed him, provoking him into losing his temper, but it was the first time his powers had showed themselves under duress; it hadn't been an intentional response, she was sure about that. She should probably go talk to him but she was certain that he was still too angry, and if she intruded on his territory he was bound to see it as a sign of aggression. She wasn't interested in getting into another argument with him so soon after that last one.

She was getting ready to go check on dinner when the shop door slid open and Michael stepped outside. He took his time crossing the yard, unconcerned with the downpour that soaked him within seconds. His right hand reached out to settle on the handrail as his left foot landed on the second step, and he froze when he looked up and their gazes locked.

Maria's breath froze in her throat as she was thrown back several years to a rainy night and another Michael Guerin. In that time and place he had been seeking acceptance, reassurance, and a safe place where he could fall with the knowledge that her loving arms would catch him. This man sought none of those things, but in that moment she knew that the regret that briefly flared in his dark eyes was probably the closest thing to an apology that he had to offer.

She saw him take a step back and on an impulse she pushed the door open, sliding it along its track and standing aside. "Dinner'll be ready soon," she offered quietly.

He took the steps two at a time and quickly entered the house, heading back towards his bedroom without a word.

"Michael?"

He paused, but didn't turn around.

"Look, I shouldn't have said anything about Stone; I obviously don't understand your relationship with her."

"No, you don't." He waited a few seconds before nodding to himself and continuing on his way down the hall.

Maria watched him go and wondered if he had been waiting for an apology for more than her comments about Stone. _Well,__ if__ that __was __the __case __he __might __as __well __get __used __to __waiting __because__ he __wasn't__ going __to__ get __an __apology __for __anything __else;__ she __wasn't __the __slightest __bit __sorry __for __the__ rest __of __it._

She went to get something to clean up the water trail he had left in his wake and then walked back to the kitchen to put the finishing touches on dinner. Despite their fight the night before she wanted him to sit down and eat; considering the amount of food he put away on a daily basis, she was surprised he hadn't passed out from not eating.

Michael stepped into the bathroom and scrubbed his hands, getting rid of the oil and grease from the engine parts he had been working on. Finished with that, he stripped out of his shirt, hanging it over the shower rod so he could peel his pants off and drop them in the bathtub. He reached for a clean towel out of one of the cabinets and rubbed it over his body, drying off as he looked around the room. She had infiltrated the bathroom as well as the other rooms in the house; her stuff was completely mixed in with his and he always had to remember to double check to make sure he wasn't grabbing the wrong deodorant, soap, or shampoo.

No matter how many times he had moved things around in an attempt to keep all of her stuff separate from his, it always ended up mixed in together again. Most mornings he had to weed through the dozens of small bottles and tubes of makeup and other crap she had accumulated just to locate his aftershave and cologne. His gaze moved along the counter to the pair of electric razors sitting in their chargers next to each other. He rolled his eyes and ran the towel over his hair, getting most of the wetness rubbed out so he wouldn't have to resort to using the hair dryer that now resided on the shelf behind him. He'd had no choice but to build the shelf because for someone who had no intention of hanging around she was collecting an awful lot of things that were necessary to her daily life, and burning his hand on her curling iron had been the last straw.

He hung the towel up and walked through his bedroom to the closet to grab a clean set of clothes. He pulled a clean pair of cargo pants up over his hips, zipping then and ignoring the button as he reached out to plow through the shirts available. Selecting a red, sleeveless tee shirt he draped it over his left shoulder and made his way back through the house.

The smell of food got stronger the closer he got to the kitchen and his stomach growled loudly, reminding him once again that he hadn't eaten since the night before. He could hear one of his Blues CD's playing in the small stereo in the kitchen, but it was the female voice accompanying the singer that caught his attention. He paused in the doorway, his arms crossed over his chest as he leaned against the wood frame and watched her.

She was wearing a multi-colored shirt that kept slipping off of one shoulder and a short black skirt. Like him, she was barefooted as she moved around, collecting the dinner dishes and stacking them on the counter to be placed on the table. She was totally unaware of him as she sang along with the song playing, the ease with which she transitioned when the tracks changed indicating that she listened to it frequently. His dark eyes followed the uninhibited movements of her body as she swayed to the music, and he craned his neck to the side when she bent over to open the oven door.

He growled low in his throat when she leaned over a little further and the skirt crept up with her movements, revealing more of her thighs than was previously visible, but not nearly enough in his opinion. _It __was __so __tempting __to __just __walk __up__ behind__ her __and__ slide __his __hands __over __her __ass __before __turning __her __around__ and __taking __her __pouty__ mouth __in __a __deep, __hard __kiss._

Maria was pulling the metal rack out to check on the roast when she felt a familiar tingling sensation dance along her spine and she knew without looking that Michael was behind her. His dark gaze was penetrating and she could feel it as surely as if he had reached out and touched her; it was something he had in common with her Michael and it was as disturbing as it was exciting.

She straightened up and whirled around to face him. "Can I help you with something?" she snapped, annoyed at the heat that flooded through her as his molten gaze traveled over her body. She immediately regretted the question, knowing what he was going to say before he said it.

"Oh, there are so many things you could help me with," he whispered huskily.

"I'll just bet there are." She shook her head as she moved to turn the volume down on the stereo built into the wall. "Anything that's not X-rated?"

He snorted and straightened up, entering the kitchen and walking up to her to clamp his hands around the edge of the counter on either side of her. "_Not _X-rated? Where's the fun in that?" His dark eyes gleamed triumphantly when she lowered her gaze to his bare chest and he saw the green irises darken to jade. He held his breath when he saw her right hand lift from her side and come to rest flat against his chest, pressing his dog tags against his flesh.

Maria waited several long, torturous moments before she slid her hand up and over the sculpted muscles, feeling the slight quiver in them. She heard his breathing quicken as her fingers trailed to his side and up under his arm. She had him right where she wanted him; he thought she had finally reached the end of her rope and she was giving in to him. She smiled to herself as she grabbed several of the hairs under his arm and jerked them as hard as she could.

Michael jumped back away from her, his right hand coming up to press against his left armpit as he howled in pain. "Son-of-a-fuckin'-bitch!" he screamed, pacing around erratically. "What the fuck did you do that for?"

"One way or the other, you're gonna learn what the word _no_ means."

As soon as the stinging, eye-watering pain subsided he withdrew his hand and looked at it, surprised that she hadn't drawn blood with her vicious attack. "And maybe next time you could simply _say_ no_,_" he snarled.

"I've already told you no and you seem to think that it only means I'll change my mind at a later date and that you're welcome to keep trying."

Michael pulled his shirt on over his head and glared at her. "Only one of us is lyin' to ourselves, and it's not me." He grabbed the stack of dishes off of the counter and carried them over to the table. "You can deny it all you want, Maria, but we both know it's only a matter of time before you end up in my bed."

She refused to let her mind go there. She simply refused. She would _not_ trade her Michael in for the first copy available. "You live in a fantasy world."

_Huh_? She was the one who refused to accept her lover's death and who kept hoping that he would help her do something - something that she didn't even understand - to turn back time or work some kind of alien magic and _he _was the one living in a fantasy world? Fuck, that Maria girl was seriously delusional! "Believe whatever you need to believe to get you through the night."

"Just take the roast out of the oven." Maria went on as if he hadn't said anything. It wasn't a comment worth responding to.

Michael narrowed his eyes, not liking the way she was totally ignoring what he had said. "Y'know, there's a very fine line that separates fantasy from reality."

"Why don't we talk about what happened last night," Maria suggested, desperate to change the subject. She didn't want to think about how much she was really attracted to him or that there was a part of her that wondered what it would be like to make love with him.

"No." Michael carried the roast over to the table and set it down before crossing over to the refrigerator and pulling out two bottles of beer. He carried them to the table and sat down, placing one on the table in front of her plate before leaning back in his chair and uncapping his bottle.

Maria slid a pan of rolls into the oven and watched him, seeing his unwillingness to discuss the unexpected display of his powers. "Michael, something happened that you need to - "

"You make salad to go with dinner?" he asked, walking back over to the refrigerator and opening the door. He didn't want to talk about what had almost happened; she could've easily gotten hurt by his loss of control and it bothered him on a level that he didn't care to examine too closely.

"On the second shelf." She moved the rest of the serving dishes to the table and took her seat while he debated which dressing he wanted with the salad. He finally gave up and grabbed both bottles along with the salad and carried it to the table. It had taken weeks before she had been able to convince him to eat a salad, and once he had discovered that enough dressing covered the taste of the actual salad she hadn't had any more problems.


	26. Chapter 25

**Part****25****  
><strong>  
>He sat down and started carving the roast while she pulled the rolls out of the oven. She transferred them to a bowl as she considered how to continue a conversation that he obviously didn't want to have. She handed them to Michael when he turned around and then went to get the butter and strawberry jam from the refrigerator. She knew he would slather butter and jam on the rolls and then pour hot sauce over them once he finished the main course.<p>

They ate in silence for a while before Maria decided to bring the topic up again. "He had the same problem, y'know?"

Michael looked up from the mashed potatoes and gravy he was loading onto his fork. "What?"

"Michael… he had the same problem controlling his powers when his emotions were involved. Actually, when his emotions got involved he really didn't have any control over his powers." She sighed when he shrugged and went back to eating. "Look, you're a very controlling man… you control everything in your life, from what jobs you're gonna take, to what woman you're gonna have sex with, to what you drink."

He paused to look at the bottle in his hand.

"It's non-alcoholic, although, my guess is that you've never even so much as tried an actual alcoholic drink because it would compromise your controlling nature. I'd be willing to bet that you don't do anything that would jeopardize that control and that not drinking alcohol has less to do with the fact that your alien bloodstream can't handle it and more to do with the fact that alcohol - "

He frowned. _This was news to him._"What're you talkin' about?"

"You guys have no tolerance for alcohol, something which you apparently didn't know judging by your surprise." She nodded at his scowling expression. "Which means that I'm right about the reason you drink beer that's non-alcoholic; it's a control measure." She gave herself a mental pat on the back for her analysis of his character. She had gotten to know him pretty well; she could read him, and she'd be willing to bet that he didn't like that one little bit.

"There's nothin' wrong with control," he muttered.

_Michael and control… two words which so didn't mix!_ It was so strange to see him desperately clinging to control. _Why did he act this way? Had something happened in his past, in the orphanage, maybe?_She would really like to hear his story about that part of his life but she knew that he wasn't going to share that with her. She had her doubts that he ever would. "You think if you control everything so rigidly that you can ignore the part of you that isn't human… that as long as it never reveals itself that you can - "

Michael growled, pissed off with her psychological crap and her apparent belief that she had any right to analyze him. _Why was he still sitting there, listening to her spouting nonsense about his life and the way he led it? It was his life, and he was free to do and act the way he wanted!_"You don't know anything about it."

Maria went on as if she hadn't heard him. She was on a roll now, and she wanted to prove to him that she wasn't just his double's lover, or the girl he was welcoming - and she certainly used that word in its loosest possible form - temporarily into his home. She _knew_him, and he would have to deal with the fact that someone not only knew his secret, but also had an insight into the depths of his soul. "I know what it's like to watch someone try so hard to hide such an essential part of who they are because of what could happen to them if their identity was ever discovered. But, it was more than just fear of discovery; like I said, Michael had a difficult time trying to control his powers when his emotions were involved. The more emotional he was, the harder it was for him to maintain any control." She took a drink from the bottle he had set next to her plate before continuing.

"And no one ever saw him use his powers?" Michael asked, his tone skeptical.

"No one that wasn't supposed to. There was evidence of his loss of control on a few occasions, but no one ever connected it to him."

"What'd he do?"

Maria dug into her past, searching for a story to tell. _Which one would be the most significant? Michael's anger when they had came out of Ms. Vivian's reading? Or Billy?_ She sighed. _Billy… yeah, that's the one it was going to be. That was when Michael's powers had really gone crazy._She didn't like to think about that time in their relationship; she wasn't particularly proud of her behavior. So much had been going on and she had felt like she was drowning, as if her only identity had been that of Michael Guerin's girlfriend, and not Maria DeLuca, the girl who had dreams, goals and who wanted to get out of Roswell, New Mexico. But still, it was a part of her past with Michael… it just wasn't one of their better times.

"Well, one of the worst times was probably when this guy that I went to band camp with came back into town for a visit; it set Michael off pretty bad. His big thing was causing things to explode unintentionally when his emotions got involved. He blew up all kinds of stuff at the restaurant… bowls, sugar dispensers, and eggs. At home it was a lamp and his TV, and I can assure you _that_wasn't intentional because the man had a serious relationship with his television set. He set car alarms off all over my neighborhood when he blew the windows out of just about every car within a two or three block radius." She shook her head. "None of it was intentional - "

"What'd you do?" Michael asked, leaning back in his chair and slouching down as he finished off his beer.

Lost in her past, Maria was startled by his sudden question. "Excuse me?"

_Hmmm, there was some bad stuff involved, he could smell it. So, their past wasn't a complete bed of roses. Interesting._ "You said his emotions and loss of control over his powers were directly connected… so, what'd you do to set him off?" He nodded when she remained silent. "Uh-huh, so it wasn't just about his emotions, it was about their connection to you, and _you_did somethin' that provoked him."

Maria glared at him. "Yes, okay, he didn't like the fact that I was hanging out with Billy; he was jealous and he felt threatened by it."

Michael's left hand rested on the edge of the table and he tapped the empty bottle against it as he studied her guilty expression. "He had cause to be jealous though, didn't he?" He pointed at her as he stood to go get another beer. "You look guilty as hell."

"It wasn't like that! Billy was a musician; he understood - "

Michael's face became thunderous. He didn't know this Billy guy, but he felt like he could break something just by hearing her defending him. "He understood that you were with someone else and he still made a move on you."

Maria started, shocked by Michael's unexpected anger. _God, whether it was her world or this one, Billy was always going to be a subject of contention with the Michael Guerins of the universe! She had moved on and forgotten about him. As a person, he hadn't had that much of an impact on her life._Billy Darden's impact on her life was more about what he had said than who he had been. "Look, that all happened a long time ago, and that is not why I brought the subject up. I am trying to get you to understand that there is a direct connection between - "

"Yeah, I got your point," he interrupted again. He twisted the cap off of the bottle and dropped it in the trash. "So, what happened with Billy, huh? Your boy kick his ass?"

"No, Billy went on to New York and…"

Michael frowned when the rest of her response was so jumbled together that he couldn't make it out. "And, what?" he asked, seeking clarification.

Maria decided that the history lesson was over. He didn't need to know everything about Michael and her. And she really didn't like remembering that moment in her life. Her heart ached at the reminder of the pain she had caused her Michael. She swallowed hard, forcing down the lump in her throat. "And the rest of it really isn't any of your business. The important thing is that with practice you can learn to control your reactions. It might even be a little easier with you because of your occupation; you're more focused, more disciplined in some areas than he was."

"So, he learned to control his reactions?"

"Eventually."

That sounded good. If his double had learned to control his powers, so could he. It couldn't have been that difficult. And in the long term, it would be advantageous for his job if he could use his powers whenever he wanted, without risking being seen, hurting people, or being out of control. He watched her speculatively. _Would she be willing to help him with the focusing and training?_He had to ask. He really had nothing to lose at this point. "How?"

Relieved that he was dropping the _Billy_subject, Maria answered quickly. "With a lot of practice; we worked on it regularly to keep him on top of his game and he responded better when I worked with him. It helped him to focus and…" She trailed off when he braced his left hand on the counter and stared at her. "What?"

"You have him on a reward system?"

She must have heard him wrong. "A what?"

"Y'know, when he got it right you'd reward him?"

Maria looked to the heavens for patience. _What did he think her Michael was? A dog that she had been training?_ "When he got it right, that was reward enough. He wanted to get his powers under control for himself, to protect me and his family… not to get laid." _God, she really hated him, sometimes!_

"So, you're tellin' me there was no incentive for him to get it right?" Incredulity colored his voice. _How could his double not see that he had the upper hand in that situation? Maria wanted him to train, so the least that the other Michael could have done was to bargain to get what he wanted._ He shook his head. _The other Michael had been a little boy. He would've had so much to teach him, had they met._ His insides suddenly shook with unease. _Shit! Not again. What was going on?_He took a deep breath, hoping to move past the episode and much to his surprise, he succeeded.

"Incentives like survival are pretty motivating, jackass." She shook her head when he frowned at her response. "Is there anything that doesn't automatically lead back to sex with you?"

He snorted. "Everything leads back to sex with me and that's the way I like it. And if this kid was me in your universe…" His grin was filthy. "Then there's no way he was the choirboy you've described."

_Grrr, why on earth did he insist on picturing Michael as a saint? She had __**never**__ said that he was a saint or anything even remotely close to resembling one._He was really starting to get on her nerves with his perfect Michael image that he kept throwing in her face. "I never said Michael was a choirboy, a saint, or perfect; those are all terms that you've come up with to describe him. There were some very distinctive differences between the two of you - "

"Yeah, he was everything I'm not, right?" _Déjà vu,_he thought.

"Basically, yes. Michael didn't have some need to sleep with whatever willing female body happened to be available; he needed more than just some - "

Michael chuckled. "Let me guess… he was the first guy you ever slept with."

_Oh, she was so tempted to just throw something at him!_"He was the only guy I ever slept with. Neither of us ever slept with anyone else. Ever."

He choked on his beer and grabbed the small towel hanging on the oven door to wipe his mouth. "What?"

"Monogamy, ever heard of it?" She smirked at his shocked expression. "Michael was very good at it."

"He never fucked anyone else?" _Never? How was that possible? She was cute and he definitely wanted to nail her, but there was no way she was that good! No woman was a good enough fuck to make a man ignore the rest of the sexual buffet the world had to offer. Nope, it wasn't possible._"You're either lyin' or delusional."

"Believe what you want, Michael, but trust me when I tell you that neither of us had any reason to look elsewhere for satisfaction."

_She was gonna fuckin' kill him! He didn't believe for a minute that two people could be so… dedicated, to each other, but if she was tellin' the truth and his counterpart had never fucked any other women, then she had to be somethin' else between the sheets. He really wanted to know what it was that had kept the man from seeking out other women, and what it was about her that could possibly make that need invalid._ He shook his head, clearing his thoughts. _Okay, this was just gonna drive him crazy if he kept thinking about it. Time to move on._"So, he got better by practicin' with your help?"

"Yeah," Maria said slowly, unsure of where he was going with the question.

"Good, we'll start in the mornin'." He sat down at the table once more, grabbing another roll and spreading butter and jam on it before pouring hot sauce over it.

"We'll start what?"

"You said you practiced with him and that it somehow helped him concentrate or focus, right? Well, you know more about this than I do, so it only makes sense that I use any information you can give me." _And if he could impress her, that would be a bonus. Yep, it was all good. Wait… impress her? Where had that come from?_

Maria shook her head. "Look, you're not gonna listen to me; I'm gonna tell you what to do, you're gonna get pissed off when things don't go the way you want them to, and then we're gonna get in another argument. I enjoy arguing with you, really."

He frowned at her sarcastic tone.

"But, I'm not interested in spending my time off with you yelling at me."

"Why do you assume I'll yell at you?" he asked, biting into the roll and licking the hot sauce off of his fingers when it dripped onto his hand. Okay, he was pretty sure that it _would_come to that. It was like they couldn't help it.

_Was he kidding? Had he not learned anything since they had met?_"Because it's what you do, and that's not how I wanna spend my time off."

"Fair enough. So, we'll start in the mornin' after breakfast."

"You expect breakfast too?"

"I'd prefer to start the mornin' by getting laid, havin' breakfast, takin' a shower with a beautiful woman and nailin' her to the wall before the hot water runs out, and then loungin' around in front of the TV for a while before startin' this. However, since that's not gonna happen, I would like to have breakfast first." He carried his dishes over to the sink and washed his hands, drying them before turning to look at her.

She had thought that her Michael was obsessed with sex, but this Michael was putting him to shame. He had sex on the mind 24/7. She'd bet that even if he lived until he was 90, he would still be chasing any girl that crossed his path. "No, that's not gonna happen. However, if memory serves, you've had breakfast every single morning since we went to the store together the first time, so it's not like you have to make a special request for it."

"So, if I make a special request for sex before breakfast, can I get that?" he called over his shoulder on his way out of the room.

"No," she yelled back. She couldn't help the smile that teased the corners of her mouth at his bark of laughter in response to her negative answer. She could hear the TV come on and the usual drone of the sportscaster's voice loudly proclaiming that tonight's game was a true clash of the titans and she rolled her eyes. _She had heard that opening gambit too many times over the past few weeks; that sportscaster really needed to get a new speech._

He would spend the next couple of hours shouting obscenities at the referee for being too stupid to know how to make a real call and the rest of the time he would be ogling the dance squad and cataloging their finer… assets. She couldn't decide whether he liked the game or the halftime show better. _Not that it mattered,_ she thought with a smile. He was going right along with her plan and he didn't even know it; she had known that he wasn't going to go along with her plan if she just told him they were going to work on his control issues with his powers. But, he thought it was his idea and they were doing it because he said so, not because she had anything to do with it. She stood and started clearing the table, making a thick sandwich out of the leftover roast and wrapping it before sitting it on the counter. He'd be back for it before long.


	27. Chapter 26

**Part****26**

Michael was on the verge of throwing the empty bottle in his right hand at the television screen when his team missed the shot that would've tied the game before the halftime buzzer sounded. _Morons!_The stats scrolled up on the screen and he glanced over them as they faded out and the commercials started.

He hurried into the kitchen to toss the empty bottle and get another beer, but there was a glass of iced tea sitting next to the wrapped sandwich on the counter. He smiled when he saw the chocolate chip cookies, wrapped and placed on top of the sandwich where he was sure to see them. He decided to forego the beer in place of the glass of tea, and he scooped everything up and rushed back into the living room in time for the halftime show to start.

He set everything down on the table next to his chair, unwrapping the sandwich and biting into it in seconds. He smirked as he thought back over their earlier conversation; she had no clue that he had her right where he wanted her. She probably thought it was all her idea to give him some pointers where controlling his powers was concerned, but he had skillfully maneuvered her right where he wanted her. He silently congratulated himself on once again getting the upper hand as he took another bite, savoring the flavor of the roast she had made for dinner. _One__ thing __was __for __damn __sure__ – __the __woman__ knew__ how __to __cook! _He glanced over at the empty spot on the couch where she usually sat when they watched movies together and he glanced at the hall behind him, wondering what she was doing.

He got up and wandered along the hall until he reached her open bedroom door, leaning in as he kicked the doorframe to get her attention. She was reclining on the bed, reading a book she was holding propped up against her bent legs. "Hey, whatcha doin'?"

Maria bit back the acidic response that automatically came to mind and looked up at him. "Reading."

Michael took another bite of the sandwich and chewed thoughtfully for several long seconds. "Wanna watch a movie?"

_This__ was __new. _"What about the game?"

He shrugged. "Sucks ass tonight."

Right. And there were no other reasons? She put her book down and looked at him. _Did__ he __want __company, __or __did __he __want __her __by __his __side __to __watch __a __movie? __Scratch __that, __he __was __probably __bored. __Yep, __that __was__ probably __it. _"Um-hmm, and none of the cheerleaders are drool-worthy?"

Michael bit into his sandwich to avoid having to answer just yet; he hadn't even looked at the television when the halftime show started. "The teams aren't the only thing that sucks ass; there's nothin' but a bunch of second-rate, uncoordinated, ugly bitches out on the floor… I don't even think they qualify as a dance squad."

Maria shrugged. "Well, we did buy a couple of new movies last time we went grocery shopping."

"Okay, but I don't wanna watch the one you picked out."

"You said the plot sounded interesting," she said as she slid a bookmark into place and set the closed book on the nightstand.

"It did, but the chick in your movie's ugly and I've had my fill of ugly chicks for one night. The movie I picked out has a hot fuckin' lead."

Maria rolled her eyes. "Fine, we'll watch your movie."

"Did we buy any popcorn?" he asked eagerly, sounding like an excited kid.

_Not__ again!_ Exasperation crept into her tone. "Michael! You just had dinner an hour ago and you're snacking right now; let your food settle before you overload your system." _After __sex, __food __was __definitely __his __second__ obsession! _Good thing that he was exercising and running to keep in shape; it allowed him to burn off all the food that he was constantly wolfing down. His body was perfectly sculpted thanks to years of hard work and a strict exercise regimen. His muscles were always showing under his tee-shirts and his thighs filled out his cargo pants to perfection.

Maria quickly derailed that train of thought, suddenly feeling very hot. _Damn __Michael! __He __was __invading __her __thoughts __and __corrupting __her!__ Michael __had __died __a __matter__ of __weeks __ago__ and __here __she __was __drooling __over __his __double. __What__ was __wrong __with __her? __Was __she __so__ bored, __so __desperate, __that __she__ was __fantasizing __about __the __pig__ standing __in __her __doorway?__ No. __There __had __to __be __another __explanation. __No__ way __was__ she__ attracted __to __this __Michael; __he __was __a__…__.__ a __man__ whore__… __a __dumbass__… __a __first __class __ass.__ So__…__why?_ She desperately searched for an excuse. _Hey, __she __was __only __human.__ Wait __a__ minute, __only __human? __Yes!_ Maria exclaimed silently. _She __was __only __human,__ trapped __in __a __world __that __wasn__'__t __hers, __still __mourning __the __loss __of __her__ Michael, __and __forced__ to __live __with __a __copy __of __her __beloved__ Spaceboy.__ That __explained __everything. _Michael's question her brought her back to reality, and his raised voice indicated that he had asked it more than once.

"But, we bought popcorn, right?"

"Yes. Hold on until we get halfway through the movie and I'll make some, okay?" She smiled when he agreed, knowing by the time they reached that point he would have forgotten all about it. She followed him into the living room and settled into her normal spot on the couch while he got the movie set up to play. She wondered what the next day would bring as she wiggled around to get comfortable. It would be interesting to see how well he adapted to controlling his powers and how long it took for him to adjust to using them with specific targets in mind.

Michael grabbed the remote and one of the cookies before turning the lights off and slouching down in his chair with his feet propped up on the coffee table. He took a drink from the glass of tea and grabbed up the second cookie as the credits started to roll on the screen. Without realizing it, he spent more time watching her than he did watching the movie with the hot lead, and he wondered if her presence would actually matter one way or the other when he started practicing with his powers.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

"You're not concentrating."

Michael had to grit his teeth when Maria repeated what had quickly become her favorite sentence of the day. The day before she had been bitching about him not focusing, and they had argued countless times over whether or not that was the problem.

"I am concentrating," he argued. "This isn't as easy as it looks, not that you'd know."

"Not that I'd know?" Maria repeated, irritated by his tone. "We've been out here for most of the past two days and do you know what we've achieved?"

Michael looked around the backyard, shrugging as his gaze raked over the thousands of tiny pieces of rock that used to be much larger rocks. "Look, you're the one who said your presence was supposed to provide focus, or inspiration, or some other bullshit, and I haven't seen how that's workin'."

Maria rolled her eyes as she moved to line up more rocks on the top rail of a nearby fence. She knew he was frustrated; they had been working for two days and he had yet to blow up a single rock. The idea was for him to single out one rock out of a group or rocks and blow it up, but so far, he had blown up all of them every time.

"You have to focus all of your energy on one single rock," she repeated for what felt like the millionth time that day. She moved over to stand next to him again. "You can do this, Michael."

"I'm startin' to have my doubts," he grumbled. He shook his head as he shook his right hand out and forced it to relax. He didn't know why he had insisted on spending another day working on something that he obviously wasn't going to master. He brought his right hand up, focused his concentration, and… all five rocks exploded. "This is bullshit and I'm sick of doin' this!"

"You're over-thinking."

"Well, why do you have to put 'em so fuckin' close together?"

Maria listened to him as he paced around, complaining about wasting his time. She shook her head and crossed the yard to line up five more rocks on the fence. "You can do this if you'll just concentrate."

"I have been fuckin' concentratin'!" he shouted angrily.

It wasn't quite the same as working with her Michael; his temper was too close to the surface and it was affecting his ability to… She glanced between him and the rocks lined up on the fence. _Maybe __with __him __it __was __a __matter __of __redirecting __that __anger,__ channeling __it __in __the __proper __direction. _"Really?" Maria taunted. She watched him as he bitched about everything under the sun while he stalked around the yard, giving his temper a workout. She pushed the rocks closer together and stepped back, well out of range of exploding rock, and called his name.

"What?"

He was going to have to learn to control his powers with intent instead of by reaction, but if he could successfully do this one time it would give him incentive to continue. "Take everything you're feeling right now, all that anger, hostility, and frustration and turn it on the rock in the middle."

"Don't you think if I could do that, I would've already done it?" he snapped.

Maria took his arm and turned him so that he was facing the fence. "Blow up that middle rock, now!" she yelled, shoving him hard and causing his temper to spike.

Michael's hand shot out, reacting to her pushing and prodding, and his mouth dropped open when the rock in the middle burst into tiny pieces. _Holy __fuck! _He stared at his hand, shocked that it had finally worked right.

"I told you that you could do it!" Maria exclaimed excitedly.

Without knowing how it happened or who initiated it, they found themselves locked in a tight embrace as tongues dueled and teeth clashed and they each fought for control of the kiss. The struggle for domination would've continued but Maria let him take the lead, urging him on as her nails gently scraped against the side of his neck. She let herself get lost in his touch and his taste, but the moment his big hands slid up under her shirt to settle against her bare skin she froze.

Michael swore when she broke the kiss and jerked away from him, putting quite a bit of distance between them. He wiped his right hand over his mouth as he stared at her, enjoying the way her rapid breathing was causing her breasts to push against her shirt. "What'd you stop for? You wanna take it inside?"

"No." _How __had __she __let __that__ happen?__ She__ hadn__'__t __just __let__ it __happen,__ she__ had __encouraged__ him. _"No, this can't go anywhere… it shouldn't have happened."

Okay, that statement made something twist uncomfortably in his chest. "What?" He scowled when she started rubbing her upper arms, as if she were cold. _She __was __acting __as __if __he __had __just __assaulted __her! __Which__ was __ridiculous, __because__ she __had __been __just __as __into __it __as __he __was; __the__ signals __had __been __there, __he __knew __he __hadn__'__t __misread __them. _"What the fuck are you talkin' about?"

"You shouldn't have kissed me!" she shouted. "You had no right! I told you, I will not cheat on – "

"_I_had no right?" he roared, pissed off that she blaming him for something that she had been totally into and had felt pretty fucking good. As if that weren't bad enough she was gonna bring up her dead lover and throw that in his face again. "You weren't exactly pushin' me away and screamin' your favorite goddamned word!" He started to walk up to the house but turned around to glare at her when he reached the steps. "You wanna lie to yourself, I can't stop you, but you wanted that to happen just as much as I did."

"Tell yourself whatever you need to hear if it'll help you sleep better at night," she snapped. "You took advantage of me!" She flinched when the rocks on the fence behind her shattered and she stormed past him and into the house.

Michael grabbed her arm and jerked her around to look at him. "You wanna act all self-righteous, go ahead, but don't accuse me of kissin' you against your will." He shook her roughly. "You've been around me long enough to know that I would've stopped the second you said no… and you didn't say it. I may be the biggest asshole you've ever met, but you know I wouldn't push you into doin' anything against – "

Everything he was saying was true, but she was in no mood to hear it. She shook his arm off and stalked into the house, slamming the door behind her.

"Fine!" he yelled, staring at the door. "Be a bitch about it!" He paced around, kicking every single rock in his path as he muttered to himself. _She__ was __gonna __pay __for __this __one,_ he thought, viciously kicking what he thought was a large rock. He frowned when it landed several feet away and he realized it was a turtle and now the damn thing was stuck lying upside down. "Fuck," he muttered, crossing the yard and nudging it over with his boot. The leathery little head poked out and looked around and he wondered if he had just sent the ugly thing back to where it had started from that morning. "Shitty day for you an' me both, pal. S'okay though… she wants to be a bitch… well, retaliation's the biggest bitch out there." _Question__ was, __what __could __he __do __that __would__ be__ worthy __of __her __behavior?_ He smiled slowly as he recalled a conversation he'd had with Indigo several weeks earlier. _It __would __mean __breaking __one __of __his __rules, __but __it __was __for __a__ good __cause__… __and__ it __would __only __be __the __one __time._ He consoled himself with that thought as he hurried inside and grabbed his keys off of the counter.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Maria checked on the chicken, testing to make sure it was moist before sliding the rack back inside and closing the oven door. She set the table for two, refusing to believe that Michael wouldn't come home after their fight.

He had been gone for hours, but after her reaction to that kiss it wasn't unexpected. She had finally had time to calm down and think rationally about what had happened and she knew it wasn't completely his fault. She hadn't said no and she had been into it… it had felt so good to be held against his body, to feel his demanding mouth on hers, but the moment his hands had touched her skin there had been no way to ignore that he wasn't her Michael.

Their hands were similar, but her Michael's hands were rough and calloused from working manual labor jobs. This Michael had rough hands as well, but they were different; years of handling weapons had created a different pattern of calluses than those that developed from manual labor. That difference had startled her and the realization of what she had been doing with him had scared her and she had attacked him.

Looking at it now she could see that it had simply been a natural reaction under the circumstances. She knew she owed him an apology for overreacting the way she had and that was why she was making one of his favorite meals.


	28. Chapter 27

**Part 27**

She breathed a sigh of relief when she heard gravel crunching under the tires of his truck and soon after the garage door was being opened.

"Dinner's not ready yet," she called when she heard his key in the lock, followed by the door being pushed open.

"That's fine," he bit out, "because we're not hungry."

_Well, he was still pissed… Wait, did he say we?_ _Oh, no, no, no, no, no, he wouldn't dare bring a woman here… would he?_ Maria walked towards the door but he stepped into the room before she got there. "Did you say - "

"I just love your house," a feminine voice gushed and a moment later a well-endowed redhead entered the room behind him.

Michael just smirked at the look Maria aimed at him, certain that if looks could kill he'd be on the floor, reduced to a pile of smoking ashes. "Yeah, it's great," he muttered. "Why don't I show you the bedroom?"

_Oh, that oversized, egotistical, arrogant piece of… he had done just that! He knew exactly what he was doing. He had never shared his home with anyone else, but to punish her, he went against all of his standards? And he really thought that he was gonna fuck her here? Not as long as she was still breathing!_ She was starting to see red, but she realized that she had to think fast in order to prevent that disgusting, awful, vomit-inducing scenario from happening while she was living in the same house. She straightened up, preparing for the fight that he didn't know was coming.

The woman paused when Maria cleared her throat and her eyebrows lifted in surprise when she realized that they weren't alone. "Oh, you didn't tell me you had a wife at home." She shook her head as she looked at him. "I'm not really into that whole one-man-two-women thing… I'm more of a one-on-one woman, so - "

"No, no, no, no, no," Michael quickly denied. "We're not married and you're the only woman I'm interested in fuckin' tonight." He waved a hand in Maria's direction, the gesture dismissive. "She just lives here, that's all."

"Yes," Maria said, her tone droll, "I just live here. I cook, clean, and say no to sex with Michael."

"Why on earth would you say no?" the redhead asked.

"She's gay," Michael hurriedly interjected before Maria could say anything that would ruin his plans.

"Oh." She frowned. "Well, why would you be trying to have sex with her if she's - "

_Idiot! She just didn't know when to shut up and she was asking way too many stupid questions._ "Because I enjoy getting laid and some nights I just don't feel like goin' out." He shrugged.

Maria opened a drawer and pulled out a large slotted spoon before moving across the room and insinuating herself between them. "I'm Maria," she introduced herself.

"My name's Megan." The redhead smiled and shook her hand. "I don't think I've ever met a gay person."

"Really?" Maria feigned interest as she turned the other woman towards the table. "Have you ever met a castrated man before?" she asked, whacking Michael right in the crotch with the large spoon.

"Goddammit, Maria," he shouted. He had managed to turn his body enough to avoid a direct collision between the spoon and his dick, but she had still managed to graze him.

"Oh, I'm sorry." Her words dripped with insincerity. "Did I hurt you?" She wasn't the slightest bit sorry and she definitely didn't feel bad for hurting him. In fact, she really hoped that she had. Right now, she hated him more than anyone in her world or in this one. And he had intended to hurt _her_, by bringing that… that, _girl_ into their house! This was war.

_If_ she hurt him? The woman had tried to neuter him, for god's sake. A man had fragile body parts, parts that were precious, worth more than all the gold on the Earth! "You could seriously injure a guy by doin' that!"

"I'm sure she didn't mean it," Megan spoke up. "You are standing awfully close to her, so it'd be easy to - "

"No one asked for your fuckin' opinion," he snapped. _What the fuck was goin' on? This is not the way his night was supposed to go!_

Megan shook her head at him and turned her attention back to Maria. "I don't believe I've ever met a castrated man either, but I did see this movie once… it was so sad. This poor man was in this horrible accident and…"

Maria tuned her out as she turned to glare at Michael. "You are _not_ getting laid tonight," she hissed.

Michael shot a mean look in her direction. _She was going to screw up his date. Well, date was a kind word for what he had in mind. He just wanted to fuck and then it would be ciao. But he knew Maria wasn't making an idle threat; she had already decided that this wasn't going to happen tonight and he knew she was gonna do something to screw it up._

As soon as Megan was finished recounting the movie Maria smiled at him and then turned back to the woman. "Megan, do you like Chicken Parmesan?"

Megan looked deeply lost in her thoughts, and several very long seconds passed before she shook her head and answered. "I don't believe that I've ever had that before; it sounds expensive. I don't have much opportunity to get out between my jobs and school. The job at the club is just a part-time thing that I do for extra money; my full-time job is at a law firm downtown. I just wish it was a Friday night so I'd be off tomorrow."

"You poor thing," Maria murmured sympathetically. "When was the last time you had a home-cooked meal?"

Megan sighed, happy to relate her tragic life to this nice girl who was willing to listen to her. _Nice people like her were so rare._ "Oh, it's been ages. I live on frozen dinners and fast food."

"Well, it's settled then; you'll join me for dinner." She smiled and pulled one of the chairs out, gesturing to it. "I insist."

"Really? Thanks." She turned to look at Michael. "You don't mind, do you?"

Michael was gritting his teeth. "No, of course not."

"Is there someplace I could freshen up?"

"Sure," Maria offered. "Let me show you where the bathroom is."

Michael was leaning back against the island in the center of the kitchen, drinking a beer while drumming the fingers of his free hand against the counter. "You have no fuckin' right to interfere in my plans."

"I'm not interfering in your plans… in case you hadn't noticed, you no longer _have_ any plans." She let her gaze travel down over his body, pausing when she reached his crotch. "Geez, and you wasted a perfectly good erection, too."

"Fuck you!" he snarled viciously.

Maria chuckled. "Don't blame me; you're the one who picked up some little college girl with two jobs. I figure we'll have dinner, talk over dessert, and converse until, oh, I don't know, close to ten or so, and then it'll be time for her to be on her merry way."

Michael glared at her. "I'm getting laid tonight."

No he wasn't. She wasn't gonna let that happen. She refused to focus on why she was so intent on him not having sex with another woman; it was just wrong, that was all. She quickly jumped back into the conversation. "Hmmm… I don't see how. I've already planned out your little girlfriend's evening and nowhere on that itinerary did your name or getting laid happen to come up." She smiled evilly as she glanced over his lower body again. "Pun not intended." She took the salad out of the refrigerator and carried it over to the table. "And, since I'm apparently gay now - as well as not interested - you've got nothing going for you there either."

Michael spent the next four hours listening to them talk about nothing. He wasn't willing to leave them alone, not trusting Maria with… whatever her name was. Countless times he had tried to separate them so he could finish his evening better than it had started, and every damn time Maria had managed to smoothly step in and divert his _date's_ attention back to her.

"Is it really after ten?" Megan asked, glancing at the clock on the wall.

"Is it?" Maria smirked at Michael as she turned to look at the clock. "I guess you'll be needing to go soon; you have to work in the morning and traffic in L.A. must be horrendous that early."

"Oh, no, I don't live or work in L.A." She smiled and launched into another long explanation, missing Maria's frown and Michael's triumphant smirk. "I just go to college there, and I do have an early class tomorrow." She smiled regretfully at Michael. "I'm sorry, but I'm gonna have to go." She turned back to Maria. "You have so much insight into relationships; we should totally meet up for lunch or dinner if you have time."

Maria agreed, mainly to piss Michael off, and went to get a pen and piece of paper for Megan to write her phone number down.

"So, after talking to Maria, I can totally see that random hook-ups just aren't that smart," she said. "Maybe we could just be friends."

Michael saw red. No woman had ever dared to suggest being friends with him! The legs of the chair scraped against the floor as he shoved it back and stood up. "I'm not - "

"Here you go, Megan." Maria elbowed Michael as she stepped in front of him to place the pen and paper on the table. "Ignore him; he's unbearable when he doesn't get his way."

Michael was waiting for her in the living room when she came back inside after walking his date out to her car. "I don't know what the fuck your problem is, but, you don't get to pick an' choose who I fuck."

"Then don't bring them home."

"What the hell does it matter? Me an' you, we're nothin' to each other, and there's no reason why it should bother you that I'm screwin' other women. You've had plenty of opportunities to get a piece of me an' you keep turnin' me down, so don't get all pissed off and jealous when I - "

"This is not about jealousy." A little voice in her head suddenly spoke up and reminded her that, yes, it was about jealousy. But that implied feelings, and feelings implied that she was forgetting her Michael, and she would fight that with everything she had. She knew she wasn't being fair to Michael, well, this version of Michael, but… she just felt that she had to stop him from having sex with other women. Whether it was jealousy, intuition, or damn possessiveness, towards Michael Guerin, regardless of dimension, she didn't know.

"No, you know what? You're right. It's not about fuckin' jealousy; it's about you kissin' me like you couldn't get enough and then pullin' the plug without an explanation other than, _it shouldn't have happened_. That's a cop-out."

Damn, he was making her sound like one of those girls who teased guys before playing the innocent, acting like the outraged victim. She wasn't like that. She had just… fallen, lost her way, in the heat of the moment. That was all. He could understand that, couldn't he? Surely he had experienced situations similar to that… right? "Fine, Michael, in that moment, yes, I wanted it to happen. But, it had nothing to do with you and everything to do with the moment; it was completely natural for me to respond." She shook her head. "It won't happen again."

Anger clouded his thoughts when he heard her denying the possibility of anything happening between them. He didn't understand why her decision was making him so furious. _He didn't expect anything serious from her and she was just some chick who just refused to spread her legs… it wasn't like there weren't other women on the planet. He could get laid whenever he wanted. Well, as long as she wasn't around to sabotage his plans. So why was he so mad?_ He shook his head; he wasn't interested in looking any deeper into himself for a motive.

"Whatever. I'm goin' to bed; don't bother with breakfast in the mornin' because I'm goin' out." He was going out, alright. Straight to Marcos' office so he could get an assignment and take off for a while. Something where he could expend some of this excess energy that obviously needed to be redirected. Hell, dodging bullets would be relaxing compared to spending any more time with Maria.


	29. Chapter 28

**Part 28**

Marcos slammed the file cabinet drawer shut and pulled the next one open, flipping through the colorful tabs that his secretary used. He had given up any hope of ever understanding her system; he would be completely lost without her and he was pretty sure that she not only knew it, but that she had planned it that way.

"What are you looking for?"

"I need the file on…" He fell silent when his secretary pushed him away from the file cabinet and handed him one of the health shakes she was always insisting he drink. He was thirty-eight years old, he had survived two wars and countless skirmishes in too many foreign countries on missions that technically didn't exist, and he had scared the piss out of men bigger than him, but when it came to his secretary… well, she wasn't the slightest bit intimidated by him.

"And it couldn't wait five minutes for me to get back from the smoothie shop?" She shook her head at him. "You're not working on anything that requires you to mess up my filing system."

"Cailyn, I don't have time to wait for - "

"And I didn't have time last night, but you still went to sleep with a big smile on your face, didn't you? Don't I always make sure you get what you need, when you need it?"

Marcos was a man of above-average intelligence and he knew better than to piss her off. The woman could do things in bed that practically melted his brain and he had learned that the best way to keep her doing those things on a nightly basis was to keep her happy. "I need the file on the Perretti job; there are some inconsistencies in a couple of the accounts that I wanna go over - "

"I've already checked those inconsistencies and verified our agents' accounting of the incident; our people are all clear. Wouldn't I have brought it to your attention if we had a problem with any of our people?" She rolled her eyes when he glared at her.

"I'm bored and you know when I get bored I start going through that mountain of post-it notes on my desk so I can go back and clean up questions regarding old case files."

Her eyes narrowed as she studied him, taking in the barest hint of agitation that was visible in his expression. This wasn't just boredom. She had been his secretary for five years and his lover for three, more than long enough to learn to read the man. "Marc?" She slapped his hand away when he reached for the handle on the file cabinet drawer. "We have seven open cases right now, three that need to have someone assigned to them; what's distracting you?"

"Xavier called while you were out."

"Does he have a job that requires one of our people?"

"Basara was spotted in Cairo a few hours ago."

This was not good information. Basara had been connected to terrorist activities in several countries and Marcos had been the last agent the Company had sent in to take the man out. His cover had been blown and after torturing him, Basara had left Marcos to die in a building wired with explosives. He had managed to free himself and crawl out of the building, but he hadn't escaped the explosion. "Marc, you can't go after him yourself." She followed him as he stalked back into his office, pacing around like a caged animal.

"Yo, Marcos!"

He paused and looked toward the door when he heard the obnoxiously loud voice. "Guerin! Tell me you're lookin' for an assignment."

"I'm in the market for an assignment that'll get me outta town for a few days. What've you got?"

"How's Cairo sound?"

"Perfect." Michael slouched down in one of the leather chairs in front of the man's desk and studied the couple's body language. "What's up?"

"How soon can you be ready to go?"

_This sounded serious._ Michael wondered what had gotten Marcos worked up into such a febrile state. "Soon as you need me. What time do I leave?"

"_We_ leave in three hours."

Michael's gaze shot to Cailyn, surprised that she hadn't said anything yet. "Um… we?"

"Basara's in Cairo and I want him dead. Xavier sanctioned the kill; I wanna be lookin' into his eyes the moment he knows he's a dead man." Marcos's voice was icy as he verbally sentenced the man to death.

Michael shifted uncomfortably. "Look, Marcos, I know you got fucked on that mission, and you've got every right to want revenge, but, what makes you think he won't kill you the second you come face to face?"

"I'll be trustin' you to put a bullet between his eyes before he gets that chance." He moved around behind his desk, his fingers trailing along the edge. "I will not miss out on an opportunity to watch him die." His fist slammed down on the ink blotter. "I will not have that taken away from me!"

_Alright, that was all he needed to know._ "Do I need my passport or are we flyin' under the radar on this one?" Michael asked.

"Xavier's providing all transportation and I'll handle our false identification papers and all expenses."

Michael stood up. "It's gonna take me two hours to get to my place and back, and about half an hour to get my gear together. Should I meet you back here or out at the Company landin' strip?"

"No, here's good." He braced his fists on the desk and raised his head to stare at the younger man when he stood up. "I want him dead, Michael."

Michael saluted to show that he understood the situation perfectly. "He'll be dead before he hits the ground."

Marcos nodded and turned his head when the office door closed a few moments later. "I can't let this go, Cailyn." Her silence spoke louder than a screaming fit would have and he looked at her directly, his blue eyes faded by the near-blindness he had suffered in the explosion. He could only see shadows and blurred images unless he was very close to what he was looking at, and there were very few people who knew that his sight was compromised.

She knew that Michael Guerin was one of the few people Marcos actually trusted and he claimed the younger man was the best sniper he had ever worked with. She also knew that there was no way to control a man like Marcos and that if she expected him to come back to her she had to let him go without a fight. "I know you're gonna do this regardless of what I say, so I'm not gonna ask you not to go. But, you know what could happen if you meet with that bastard face to face, Marc."

"Cailyn, Michael's the best sniper I've ever worked with and I'll have him at my back." He shook his head. "He may be a total dick most of the time, but he takes this job seriously."

She sighed and nodded. "You'll need to get packed, so let's close up and head for home."

Maria ignored Michael when he came home much earlier than she had expected him to. He had only been gone for a couple of hours and she had been certain he'd be gone for most of the day at least. She didn't think much of it when he went back and forth between the kitchen and the bedroom several times, but when he walked by carrying a packed bag she frowned.

"Where're you going?"

"Away." His answer was short and precise; Maria didn't need to know any more than that.

She stood and followed him back to his bedroom when he passed by again, pausing in the doorway when she saw the long rifle case lying open on his bed. "You've got another assignment," she guessed. "It's not like the last one though, is it?"

"Nope." Michael checked the weapon over even though he knew it was in perfect working order; he cleaned and oiled it on a regular basis as a preventative measure.

"How long will you be gone?"

"As long as it takes."

Maria tried once more to get at least some small piece of information out of him. "Can you at least tell me where you'll be?"

Michael closed the case and locked it as he glanced at her. "No."

Maria was beginning to feel anxious and she couldn't shake it; she just had a bad feeling about this. "What if something happens to you?"

"Never talk like that before a mission; it's bad luck." He picked his phone up off of the bed, flipping it open to make a call as he picked up the case that housed the weapon and carried it out to the garage. He talked as he worked, and she assumed he was gathering information of some kind for his upcoming mission.

She stood in the doorway, watching him as he secured the case to the motorcycle and then strapped his bag to the back. She listened to him as he carried on a conversation with whoever was on the other end of the phone and she frowned when she heard the name Basara and the word terrorist.

"Wait just one minute," she insisted, rushing after him when he disconnected from his call and turned to walk back into the house. "You're going after a known terrorist?" she asked, unable to control the fear in her voice.

Michael growled in frustration. Instead of preparing for his mission, he was going to have to stop and spend time giving this Maria girl a lesson in reality! _What hadn't she understood about his job?_ "What exactly do you think I do when I'm sent out on assignment? Go to crappy little third world countries and build schools and play with small children?" He snorted disdainfully. "Grow up, Maria; that's a bunch of PR bullshit created to give naïve people like you a nice, soft picture to make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside so you don't have to think about what's really going on."

Maria winced as she listened to him talking like that; he was so cold about life, about his job, and his mission. "Maybe in your world."

"Whatever." He shook his head and brushed past her, walking back to his bedroom to finish gearing up. "Believe whatever you wanna believe. You always do," he muttered.

Maria watched him as he armed himself with multiple weapons before pulling his dog tags out from beneath his shirt and letting them fall to rest against the white tee shirt when he turned to face her. It was as if he were making a statement that he wanted to make sure she could read without mistaking it for anything else.

"This is who I am and I make no apologies for it, not to you or anyone else." He pushed past her, stopping at the hall closet to retrieve his leather jacket before heading for the garage.

Maria stood at the picture window in the living room, watching him as he backed out of the garage and followed the driveway until he reached the end of his property and turned onto the paved road, more worried than she had let on. She supposed she shouldn't be surprised that he had an assignment; it seemed to be how he handled any situation that he didn't want to deal with, running off and focusing on something else until it could be forgotten.

She sighed and went back to doing what she had been doing before he came home. She still had a few hours before she had to be at work, and she didn't want to spend that time obsessing over his behavior. She just hoped that in his determination to ignore what was going on between them that he wouldn't forget to be careful.

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Maria walked along the aisles in the movie rental store, browsing over hundreds of titles without consciously looking for any specific thing. She had really only stopped by to drop a couple of rentals she and Michael had gotten out the week before and hadn't returned yet, but she was bored and had no desire to rush home to an empty house. She didn't have to work that night and she had gotten so used to having Michael rambling around that it was too quiet without him there.

He had only been gone for a couple of days but it felt more like weeks. She had worked the first two nights and that had helped keep her mind occupied, but tonight it was just her and the empty house and she really needed a distraction. Watching the news wasn't helping because she had no idea what to look for; she didn't know where he was, what he was doing, or what type of situation he had been sent in to handle.

The news was only causing her to worry about him; wondering if he was all right, what kind of situation he was in, was he safe or in danger? She hated thinking about what he was doing right now; her heart rate was going too fast, and fear was causing her to stress out. _He was a trained professional in his chosen career and he probably had backup, so there was no need to worry._ Maria repeated the mantra over and over in her head, doing her best to calm down.

She paused when her gaze skimmed over the Terminator trilogy; the covers looked about the same as they had in her universe. As many times as her hybrid boyfriend had insisted on watching the movies she practically had them memorized. They were by no means her favorite type of movie to watch, but she was wondering if they were the same as they had been in her universe… and, if they happened to take her mind off of the danger Michael was probably in, then that was even better.

She scooped up all three movies and carried them to the counter, carrying on a short conversation with the friendly cashier. They had gotten familiar with each other since she and Michael had been coming in on a fairly regular basis. After leaving the store she decided she didn't feel like cooking so she stopped for takeout before turning the truck towards home.

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Michael pounded on the door to the room that Marcos was in, frowning when the man didn't answer the door right away. He crouched down and checked the door, especially around the lock, checking to see if there was any damage that might indicate that someone had entered the room without the man's consent. There was no evidence that foul play had occurred, but he knew that things weren't always what they seemed to be.

He withdrew the handgun from the shoulder holster and took several steps back, giving himself plenty of room to charge the door. He was taking a deep breath when the door was suddenly pulled open and Marcos stood in the doorway hastily dressed, red-faced, and breathing heavily. "It's three o'clock in the fuckin' mornin', Guerin! What the fuck do you want?" he snarled.

Michael stepped past Marcos and into the room, and he grinned when his sharp gaze landed on the laptop lying open on the bed. "Marcos, you old dog… Internet sex? At your age?"

Marcos shut the door and turned slowly, trying to get his bearings and follow Michael as he moved around the room. He cursed a blue streak when he stubbed his toe on the dresser and he paused there, squinting to make out the other man's shadow. "No, don't touch that computer!" he shouted when Michael leaned down to pick it up.

Michael glanced at the open laptop and an eyebrow lifted in appreciation when the woman on the small screen waved. "Don't worry, you dirty old man, she's covered up." He chuckled and turned his attention back to the woman. "Cailyn, I hate to interrupt - "

"Liar." She studied him for a few moments. "You've got something," she guessed.

"Yeah, so, if you guys are finished with your computer fuck I kinda need to talk to him."

"Your eloquence never fails to amuse me." She chuckled but her expression quickly turned serious. "You know he's trusting you to get him back here alive."

"I've worked with him and for him off an' on for the past seven years… I've never let him down, Cailyn."

"Don't let this be the first time, Michael." This time her smile had an edge to it and it held a warning. "Because if anything happens to him, it'll also be the last time." She made a motion with her right hand when he just nodded in response. "Let me talk to him before the two of you go running off to chase down your next lead."

Michael sat down on the couch and waited for Marcos to finish the conversation, ignoring the man when he motioned for him to leave. He leaned forward and stared at his hands when Marcos stepped out onto the balcony and closed the door behind him. He scratched his chin as he wondered what Maria was up to; it had been three days since he had left and he hadn't so much as called Gabriel to check on her.

He shook his head and slouched back when the door opened and Marcos stepped back inside. "Alright, what's important enough for you to interrupt my time with Cailyn?"

"Had a request for a meetin' slipped under my door." He held up a small piece of paper. "I figured you'd be interested; whoever it is wants to meet in the alley in two hours. They claim to have Intel on Basara."

They discussed the meeting and decided to gear up and head down to the alley to check it out and set up in case it was a trap. It was always best to handle the situation as if the possibility of a trap was probable in order to control the element of surprise as well as they could.


	30. Chapter 29

**Part 29**

Maria was curled up in Michael's chair, chin in her hand as she stared at the blank screen on the television. Normally she didn't sit in his chair because he threw a fit, but it made her feel a little closer to him. She didn't know why she bothered; he was an asshole of the highest order, but she actually kinda missed him. Not that she would ever admit that.

The last movie had finished a little while ago and surprisingly enough, they had been the same as the movies in her universe. It was just odd how some things were identical and others like Star Wars and Madonna just didn't even exist. She picked at a loose thread in the seam on the arm of the chair as she thought about the movies she had just watched.

In the movie, the Terminator, a machine that looked human, was sent back in time to protect John Conner, a human whose purpose was to become an adult and preserve humanity, protect it from being destroyed by the machines. He had to grow up to become a leader capable of carrying out that directive, and to do that he had to be protected by the Terminator.

She sat up suddenly, ripping the thread straight down the arm of the chair without realizing it. _What if that was why the Granolith - self-serving bastard that it was - had sent her to this universe? This Michael was closed off to everything, human and alien, he was completely selfish, and he didn't give a damn about humans - individually or as a race… well, unless it involved him getting laid. He did give a damn about that._

_The Granolith knew the future, knew that Khivar was certain to be entertaining thoughts of destroying the human race, and that meant that it was also aware of the fact that Michael was necessary to their victory in that war. What if she was there to awaken that side of him, to explain his origins, to help him train, so that when the time was right he could become the leader he was created to be. Could the Granolith have known how her Michael had changed because of their relationship? Was it possible that it had sent her to this universe, to this Michael, to make him care about humans? Did it somehow think that just because she had won her Michael's heart in her universe that she could manage it with this Michael?_

_What if that was the key? What if that was how she was going to get back home? Could that be it? Help this Michael find his way to being the leader he was supposed to be and the Granolith would send her back home… before the accident occurred so that she could prevent her Michael from going near that cliff. _

_That was possible._ She frowned. _But, if that was the Granolith's reasoning for sending her to this universe, it seemed cruel. Why put her in a position to earn his trust, get him to open up, and then leave him? Maybe she was looking too deeply into it. Yeah, that was it. _

She glanced down when the sound of ripping fabric caught her attention and she swore out loud when saw the strip of material that she had pulled free. _On top of everything else, he was a bad influence,_ she thought. She had noticed that the more time she spent around him the easier it was to swear creatively.

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Cairo was not one of Michael's favorite places for business or pleasure. It was dry, dusty, and even in the middle of December it was almost seventy degrees. He could have that at home, just without all the dryness and the sand that got into everything; at least there was moisture in the air back home. Another thing that really bugged him was the constant crowds that were everywhere… _and seriously, didn't these people ever bathe?_ It wasn't bad enough that it was hot, he had sand in places he didn't even wanna think about, and there was a virtual sea of people always pushing and shoving to get wherever they were going. But on top of all that there was the constant stench that lingered in the air, and combined with everything else, it was making his stay in the overcrowded city unbearable.

For the past seven days they had been chasing down leads that had yet to yield anything solid on Basara, and Marcos was as close to antsy as he had ever seen the man. They had met with several sources, gathering information, tracking down leads, but so far they had only come up with false leads and dead ends.

"This is fuckin' bullshit," Marcos muttered as he viciously cut into his roasted duck.

Michael glanced around, carefully watching for any signs that anyone was paying any attention to them or what was being said. He speared a large piece of his beef fillet and brought it up to his mouth, biting into it and chewing slowly as he kept watch and let the man rant until he started to run out of steam.

"I know what's ridin' on findin' this guy, Marcos, but you need to get yourself under control before you do somethin' stupid. You were hopin' we'd be in an' out without any complications and that's not the way it's gone down, but you're gonna have to get your head on straight before we meet with that informant tomorrow." He shook his head. "You beat the fuck outta that last one when his information ended up bein' no good, and," he shrugged, "okay, we almost walked into the business end of an automatic weapon, so he deserved it. But you're not thinkin' clearly and you need to do whatever it is that you do to get your head screwed on straight."

Marcos was pissed that things weren't going the way he had hoped, but he knew Guerin was right. He reached for the beer the waiter had placed on the table, frowning when it wasn't where he remembered it being before.

"One o'clock," Michael muttered, letting Marcos know where the bottle was in relation to his plate. "Waiter moved it when he brought your salad."

"Fuckin' bastard." He hated the dim interior of the restaurant because it made it more difficult to see with his limited eyesight, but alcohol wasn't served at most restaurants in the city and finding one that also served roasted duck hadn't left them with many options. "Cailyn always watches the waiters to make sure they don't move shit when I'm not lookin'." A rare grin slid over the man's features. "She thinks I don't know she does it, but I know; I've seen her do it out of habit when we go out durin' the day and the lighting's better."

"And you let her do that?"

"I figure if she's willin' to stick around and put up with all my shit the least I can do is let her take care of me however she thinks is best."

"You've gone soft in your old age," Michael muttered, taking a drink of his beer.

"Possibly, but she understands me in a way no one else does. Most women aren't gonna even be willin' to put up with the shit this job requires. You think another woman would've just accepted my decision to come after Basara?" He shook his head as he leaned forward to bring Michael's shadowed figure into better focus. "She didn't want to, but she knows what it means to me so she put a lid on what she really wanted to say. I need to be able to close this chapter of my life, but it needs to be final when it happens." He took a long drink of his beer before leaning back in his chair so he could light a cigar. "Y'know, she'd kill me if she caught me smokin' these damn things." He chuckled as he pictured her reaction.

"I understand the revenge angle in goin' after Basara, but it seems like there's somethin' else goin' on."

"Well, I sure as fuck can't ask Cailyn to marry me with this motherfucker hidin' in the wings, waitin' to step outta the past and screw up what's left of my future."

Michael laughed out loud. "You're fuckin' kiddin' me; men like us don't get that involved, Marcos."

"Because it makes us weak?" Marcos waved a hand dismissively. "Havin' someone who knows the darkest corners of your soul and still accepts you can only make you stronger, Michael. She has no idea that I'm gonna ask her; I've never given her any reason to think that I ever would, but it hasn't stopped her from bein' with me." He nodded when he felt the weight of the younger man's stare. "You think it's a mistake."

"I think you're getting old and it's startin' to affect your brain. Seriously, Marcos, you're probably the last man I'd expect to be hearin' this bullshit from."

"Don't get me wrong, kid, I'm still a cynic… twenty years doin' this kinda work has pretty much ensured that won't change, but, I'm willin' to take the chance."

Michael shook his head in disbelief. "You've obviously lost your last fuckin' operational brain cell." He rolled his eyes and checked Marcos' bottle before signaling for two more beers from their nearby waiter. _The meeting with the informant the next day couldn't come soon enough,_ he thought. _Marcos hadn't exactly started spouting poetry or reciting sonnets, but the fact that the man was talking about marriage with a straight face was reason enough to make him uncomfortable as hell._

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Maria glanced at the calendar behind the bar, feeling a wave of sadness and loneliness wash over her when she realized that Christmas was just a few days away. This would be the first year in too long that she would be facing the holidays without Michael… her Michael, not the one from this universe, who probably had no understanding or concept of what the holiday was all about.

She had completely missed Thanksgiving, but she wasn't really shocked to learn that he hadn't even recognized the holiday or thought to mention it. She frowned as she looked around the bar, wondering why it wasn't decorated with any holiday ornamentation. The music was the same kind that was played all of the time; there was no holiday music or lyrics.

"You've got somethin' on your mind," Gabriel rasped from behind her. "And for some reason, that always makes me nervous."

"Have you thought about decorating for Christmas? Or maybe asking the band to play some Christmas carols?"

He almost laughed, but she looked so serious that he caught himself just in time. "Uh, no. These people aren't here to experience the wonders of the season, Maria; they come here to forget. Most of them don't have family… they don't have anywhere else to be. Some of them do have family, but they're not wanted; the last thing they want is to be reminded of the holidays and what they don't have."

Maria was disappointed. No way was she going to experience the Christmas spirit in Gabriel's bar. "Oh. Well, I guess that's understandable."

Gabriel crossed his arms over his chest as he leaned back against the counter. "You really get into all that holiday stuff, huh?" He nodded when she gave him a slight smile. He knew she was worried about Guerin; the man had been gone for almost two weeks without a single effort being made to communicate with her. She had asked a couple of times if he had heard from the man, and he had regretted having to tell her that he hadn't had any contact with him. "Well, I tell ya what; we don't do Christmas here at the bar, but if you wanna come by tomorrow afternoon I can take you someplace that does. I know you're off tomorrow night, but - "

"No, that's fine, really," Maria assured him, eager to get out of the house and be around other people.

He smiled at her enthusiasm. "Cool. Be here around noon."

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Michael ducked back behind a column as another wave of bullets whizzed by him, grazing the concrete and spraying him with tiny bits of rock that cut into his left arm. "I've just about had my fill of bein' shot at," he yelled, knowing Marcos wasn't far away.

"Tell me about it," the man shouted back.

He heard the distinct sound of an automatic weapon being reloaded and he ducked down, firing off his last couple of shots to distract the man who had claimed to have information on Basara.

"You ready, Guerin?"

Michael took several deep, calming breaths, knowing that he had to be the one to draw the enemy's fire and hopefully lure him back towards Marcos' position. He was out of ammunition, so he was going to be nothing more than a moving target. "Yeah, let's do it." He ran across the front of the building, using the wide columns for cover, ducking and dodging the bullets being sprayed in his direction.

Marcos' hands were steady as he held the automatic rifle up to his shoulder, tracking Michael's movements as he slowly made his way towards him. A shadowed figure occasionally popped up behind the columns, never far behind Michael, and he felt his heartbeat begin to pound as he lined the man up in his sights. A few more feet and he'd have him… just a few more feet. He knew he wouldn't have been able to do this if it weren't the middle of the day in a deserted part of the city; the bright sunlight brought the shadowed figures into focus and allowed him to target their assailant.

His finger gently brushed against the side of the trigger, sliding to the front as Michael ran full out towards him, dodging bullets as he dove behind the column Marcos was using for cover. The fool chasing him momentarily got caught up in the chase, stepping away from his own cover, and leaving himself open. He realized it too late and he was close enough that Marcos could see his shadowed expression fill with fear as he realized his mistake. His body jerked with every bullet that slammed into his flesh and his weapon clattered to the ground seconds before he did.

Marcos and Michael glanced at each other before stepping out from behind the column and moving to make sure the man was dead.

"Yeah, this bastard ain't goin' nowhere," Michael muttered, viciously kicking the body.

"Fucker's playin' with us." Marcos looked around, squinting as he tried to see into the distance while Michael made the call to have the body collected and disposed of.

Michael felt the small hairs at the back of his neck stand up and he adjusted his sunglasses as he looked around. "There's someone else out there."

"Basara."

He wasn't expecting it when Marcos ran down the steps and out into the open and he chased after the man, launching himself at him and taking both of them to the sandy ground. "What the fuck is wrong with you?" he snarled, doing his best to drag Marcos back to the relative safety of the building they had been using for cover.

Marcos was depending on his years of experience and training as he turned on Michael, extracting himself from the younger man's grip. "Don't treat me like a fuckin' child, Guerin!" His right hand balled into a fist and he swung, connecting solidly with the left side of the man's jaw.

"Quit fuckin' actin' like one."

They pushed and pulled, exchanging blows as Michael fought to get him out of the open. He lost the upper hand when Marcos landed a blow against the side of his head that momentarily stunned him.

"Come out and face me, you fuckin' coward!" Marcos shouted as he stood away from anything that could be considered cover and held his arms open wide.

Michael saw the sunlight reflect off of a scope on the roof of a nearby building and he yelled at Marcos to get down, but it was too late. The single bullet impacted the older man square in the center of his chest and Michael noted that the shooter was already gone by the time he reached the man lying on the ground.

He ripped the man's shirt open, breathing a ragged sigh of relief when he realized that the bullet hadn't penetrated the armored vest he was wearing. "Are you fuckin' insane?" he snapped when he saw Marcos' eyes shoot open.

"He's makin' a point," he grumbled as he pushed himself up into a sitting position. "If he wanted me dead he would've aimed at my head instead of my chest. He knew I'd be wearin' a – "

"No, we've played this your way since we got here. I'm not takin' you home in a fuckin' body bag; I will not be the one that tells Cailyn that you were too goddamn stupid to…" He shook his head as he checked Marcos' pockets, pushing the man's hands away when he tried to stop him. He located the cell phone he was looking for and he scrolled down to find the number he wanted and hit the call button.

"Guerin, don't call…" He trailed off when the younger man started talking, relieved to hear that he was speaking with Xavier and not Cailyn. He listened to Michael as he yelled into the phone, trying to extract information from the man on the other end. He chuckled when the call suddenly ended and the phone was thrown at him, and he winced when it landed against the rapidly bruising area where the bullet had impacted. "Why'd you use my phone?"

"Because mine's in about a dozen pieces after fightin' with you. You're actin' like a fuckin' rookie and you're gonna get us both killed if you keep goin' off like that, Marcos."

"He's getting impatient; he wants this over as much as I do. Help me up, my chest hurts like hell."

"Wouldn't be a problem if you had stayed under cover, asshole."

"I'm sick of this game he's playin'," Marcos huffed as he was helped to his feet. "I want it over with so I can go home."

"He could've just as easily put a bullet in your head."

"That motherfucker's playin' with us; he's not ready to kill me just yet." He leaned over to catch his breath, rubbing his chest. "You ruined my favorite shirt," he grumbled.

Michael's gaze slid over the man's loud Hawaiian shirt and he shook his head. "That thing needed to be taken out and burned before I ever touched it."

Marcos shrugged Michael's hands off and finished brushing the sand from his favored shirt. "I'll have you know Cailyn picked this shirt out." He frowned. "What, you don't believe me?"

"No, I believe you," he said, shaking his head. "No self-respecting man would pay good money for somethin' that looks like that, and the fact that you wear it in public only confirms what I already knew - you've lost your last fuckin' operational brain cell."

Marcos laughed at the younger man's tone, watching him as he turned to motion towards the vehicles driven by people that had been sent in by Xavier to clean up the scene. "Let's get back to the hotel and figure out what our next move's gonna be."


	31. Chapter 30

**Part 30**

Father Augustine was an older man with a partial ring of white hair on his head and blue eyes that had seen unspeakable things yet still retained an inherent kindness. The dark brown robes he wore reminded Maria of the clothing worn by monks in monasteries in movies that she had seen.

He walked with a slow, unhurried gait, pausing here and there to speak with the few people scattered in the cathedral. It was old, but well-cared for and there was a feeling of acceptance and welcome that had enveloped her the moment she had stepped through the doors.

"Gabriel, how good to see you again," he greeted, his voice as soft and kind as his eyes.

"How's it goin', Padre?"

"Good, very good. I had hoped for more volunteers to help out with Christmas dinner, but unfortunately, we seem to be a bit thin in that area this year."

Maria watched them, in awe of Gabriel's gentle manner with the priest, and by the sheer contrast they presented. Differences in height, stature, and aura… the two men were complete opposites, but here, in this place, they were almost equal.

"Well, maybe I can help you out, Padre. I'd like you to meet Maria; she's a friend of a friend and she's lookin' for a place where she can do some good."

Father Augustine reached out to shake Maria's hand, his grip firm despite his frail appearance. "Welcome to St. Vincent's," he said with a gentle smile.

"Thank you." Maria smiled as she looked around. "Your cathedral is beautiful."

"Thank you." Amazing. The old man was sending soothing vibes; it was so comforting.

"Hey, Padre, I can send most of my girls down to help with Christmas dinner if you need the extra hands," Gabriel offered.

Father Augustine chuckled as he ushered them further into the building. "No, no, Gabriel, you do more than enough, Son, and it's not really volunteering if you send them down here, is it?"

"No, I suppose not, but if you need the help…"

"I'll help," Maria offered, eager for the opportunity to help out.

"Well, I'll leave you two to talk," Gabriel said as he shook the Father's hand again. "I'll see you at work tomorrow night, Maria."

"Let me show you around." Afterwards Father Augustine led her through to the small office he kept and they spent the next couple of hours talking at great length. When Maria left she felt better than she had in days and as she drove home she had a genuine smile on her face.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Indigo Jeffries hated Los Angeles with a passion, but on the rare occasions when he had a charter that took him through the overcrowded metropolis he always made sure to stop in at Azrael's Sanctuary. He pulled the door open and stepped inside, grinning at the big man who moved forward with the intent of confiscating any weapons that he might be carrying.

"You really gonna pat down a one-armed man?" he asked, grinning from ear to ear.

"Indigo, you old bastard," Raphael greeted him. "What're you doin' in town?"

"Lookin' for a cold beer."

"Well, you came to the right place." He slid the bin containing Indigo's weapons into a locker and slammed it shut before locking it. "You've got locker number twenty-three."

"I owe you a beer later," Indigo said as he entered the dimly lit interior of the bar, his eyes scanning over the crowd to see if anyone he knew was hanging around. He was making his way to the bar when his gaze landed on the small blond standing at the end of the counter, talking to a customer who was paying his bill.

"Y'know, I had a feelin' you'd still be around," he said as he leaned against the bar.

"Indigo!" Maria quickly handed the credit card back to the customer and wished him a good evening before running around the counter to give the big man a hug. "What're you doing here? Michael said you hated L.A."

He returned the hug, laughing. "I _do_ hate L.A." He snorted. "City of angels, my ass. But, charters are slim this time of year and rich people pay very well, so, here I am." He settled on one of the stools when she asked him what he wanted to drink, watching her as she moved back behind the counter to get it for him. "So, Guerin hasn't said anything about you still bein' around… what's up with that?"

"Michael can be surprisingly silent when he chooses to be." She unintentionally placed his whiskey on the counter hard enough to make it spill over. "He can also be the biggest asshole I've ever known."

"What's - "

"Just a minute, Indy; I've got a couple guys who are in need of another round." Maria turned around, rushing off to take care of her customers, and leaving Indigo to watch her pensively. A voice interrupted his thoughts, drawing his attention away from her.

"What could've possibly blown you through my part of the world?"

Indigo chuckled when he heard Gabriel's raspy voice and he turned to look at the other man. "Money, what else?" He stood and gave the man a one-armed hug. "What've you been up to?"

"Whatever I can get away with. How's the charter business?"

"Slow this time of year as usual, but as long as there are rich people willin' to part with their money, the charter business will continue to be a cash cow." He motioned at the activity around them with the claw as he reached for his drink with his right hand. "Looks like things here are goin' well."

"It pays the bills, y'know?"

"Right." He nodded at Maria. "So, how long's Maria been workin' for you?"

Gabriel's eyebrows shot up in surprise. "You know her?"

"Guerin brought her around several months back, but he was pretty evasive when I asked him what he was doin' with her." He chuckled. "I had a feelin' she'd still be around."

"She's been workin' at the bar for… well, it'll be three months here pretty soon."

"He brought her to you?"

Gabriel snorted. "No, no, no, he brought her to me for a job; she's livin' out at his place."

Indigo's gaze swung from the bar owner to the waitress and back again. "You're kiddin'! She's livin' with him?"

"Weren't expectin' that, huh?"

"Fuck, no." He chuckled. "As much as that girl talks I'm surprised he didn't pawn her off on you. When I saw she was workin' here I just figured she was livin' with the rest of your girls."

"Oh, no." Gabriel grinned. "Guerin was adamant that she didn't need a place to stay."

An interested smile spread across Indigo's face. This was good, really good… teasing material good! _Oh, Guerin wouldn't escape him the next time he saw him! _"Really? She hasn't managed to drive him insane yet with her incessant chatter?"

Gabriel laughed at Indigo's question. _He obviously knew the girl! _"Apparently not. Although it probably helps that he's been outta town for the past couple of weeks."

"Where's he at?" he asked negligently while eating a handful of nuts from the bowl on the counter.

Gabriel's expression turned serious.

_He seemed worried about Michael's new mission,_ Indigo realized. He wondered why. Michael was a pro among pros; the man had nine lives and he had beaten the odds at every turn.

"Rumor has it he's in Cairo with Marcos… Basara's been spotted and Xavier sanctioned a hit."

Indigo swore. _Motherfucker! Basara?! This wasn't good. The guy was a dangerous terrorist and one hell of an adversary. _"Two weeks and no one's heard from 'em?"

Gabriel shook his head. "Nothin' on my end, but if anything had happened, Cailyn would've said somethin'; you know Marcos is keepin' in contact with her."

"Good point." _Yeah, if something bad had happened, Marcos would've told Cailyn, and she would've contacted Gabriel. So far, they hadn't heard anything from her, and that could only be a good thing. _He turned his head to have a look at Maria, still busy talking with the customers.

Gabriel couldn't help but smile when Indigo's attention moved back to the waitress. The Michael and Maria saga was turning into the gossip of the year at the bar. Some were even taking bets as to how they had known each other and how it was going to end up between them. He wondered if the retired agent had any information that would give him an edge in the betting pool. "So, no idea what the story is with Guerin and Maria?"

Indigo watched the man. The big guy seemed amused by Guerin and his mystery girl. _Since when was he interested in the guys' personal lives? _"Not a clue. She talks a lot, but she didn't really give anything away; I'm thinkin' they knew each other before he signed on with the Company."

_So, Indigo had deduced the same thing that he had. Hmm… interesting._ "Why?"

Indigo carefully scratched his ear with the claw while nibbling on a handful of chips. He answered with his mouth full, unconcerned with his lack of etiquette. "He threw a fit when he thought we were talkin' about him."

"Yeah, he's been hangin' around here a lot here lately. Gave me some bullshit excuse when I asked what was up with that." He shrugged. "Contrary to what he said, I got the feelin' he was hangin' around to make sure no one was messin' with her."

Indigo laughed and tossed back the last of the whiskey in his glass. "I can just imagine what's been goin' on out at his place; I don't think I've ever met two people more stubborn than those two."

"You want somethin' to eat?"

"Nah, I think I'll see if she wants to go get a bite to eat after her shift."

_Did Indigo have a death wish? Friend or not, Maria was Guerin's girl. Taking the girl out was entering the danger zone. _"Guerin's liable to take your head off if he finds out you took her out."

A loud voice interrupted their discussion. "_If_ he gets back."

Both men turned to look at the owner of the new voice, frowning at Hawkins when he sat on a stool further down the counter.

"What the fuck are you goin' on about?" Gabriel growled.

"Please," Hawkins scoffed as he took a drink from the bottle in his hand. "I think it's safe to say from the rumors goin' around that there's a very good chance Guerin's gonna come back in a body bag. I've heard about Basara, and his list of kills is - "

"Any chance you're ready to take her out for dinner now, Indigo?" Gabriel asked, interrupting the man speaking.

Indigo followed Gabriel's pointed glance, barely catching a glimpse of Maria when she hurried through the swinging doors that led into the kitchen area. It was obvious that she had overheard Hawkins running off at the mouth and it had upset her. He nodded in response to the bar owner's question and he waited until Gabriel had disappeared into the back before he looked at Hawkins.

He shook his head, disgusted with Hawkins for opening his mouth with Maria around. "You still ain't learned when to open your mouth and when to keep it closed."

"At least I've still got both hands," Hawkins sneered.

Indigo stood up when Maria walked out from the back, pausing at the end of the counter as Gabriel held her jacket up so she could slip her arms into it. He stood and walked over to them, pausing to kick the stool out from under Hawkins and stepping out of the way when the man was thrown to the floor. "Better start watchin' your mouth and your back, smartass."


	32. Chapter 31

**Part 31**

Maria would've laughed at the stunned expression on Hawkins' face as he scrambled to his feet, but the fear that she had been keeping leashed since Michael had taken off kept her amusement in check. She was quiet as she walked outside with Indigo, only turning her attention to him when he reached out to touch her arm.

"What?" she asked, realizing that he had asked a question and she hadn't been listening the first time he had voiced it.

"I was just askin' if you had someplace specific in mind."

"Oh." Maria looked around the parking lot, her gaze pausing for a few moments on the Range Rover before she shook her head. "Would you mind walking for a bit?"

"Not at all."

They walked in silence for quite a while before Indigo spoke, his voice breaking into her thoughts. "You seem to have somethin' on your mind," he said, starting slowly to see if she wanted to talk.

"Do you know anything about the terrorist Michael went after?" she asked after several minutes.

Indigo sighed as he scanned the neighborhood around them, searching for any possible threats as he debated the best way to answer her. He could see the fear in her eyes as she looked to him for reassurance and he could feel the weight of her stare as she waited. This was the reason why the majority of people in dangerous professions like theirs avoided relationships that required emotional ties. Most of them only got involved on a physical level to avoid messy entanglements, explanations, and reassurances like the one she was asking him for.

"Michael's damn good at what he does, Maria," he said finally. "He's been doin' this kinda work - "

"Indigo, I have a pretty good picture of his capability in the field." She paused and stopped walking so she could turn to face him. "I want to know if this terrorist, Basara, is better than Michael. I've heard the talk going around at the bar and it seems like this guy's one of the most dangerous - "

"They're in the same class, professionally speaking."

"So, theoretically, he's good enough to - "

Indigo interrupted before she could finish that sentence. "Don't go there, Maria. Look, it doesn't matter how good you are; there's always gonna be someone out there who's better and faster than you. Just remember that Michael's at the top of the game and he's trained well enough to go up against Basara." He shook his head. "Xavier wouldn't have allowed him to accompany Marcos if he had any doubts that they could complete the mission with success."

They resumed walking in silence and Maria looked around when she realized that they were nearing St. Vincent's. She hadn't intended to take their walk in the cathedral's direction, but it seemed that her feet had led her there anyway. She motioned to the entrance as she looked up at her companion. "Do you mind?"

"No, not at all." He followed her inside, wondering how she knew about the church. "How do you know about St. Vincent's?" he asked curiously, his voice hushed as they were surrounded by the powerful silence within the building.

"Gabriel brought me here and introduced me to Father Augustine." She smiled as she took a seat and after a moment he sat down beside her. "I had asked about doing something at the bar for Christmas and I think he was afraid I was going to decorate it if he didn't redirect my attention."

Indigo smiled in understanding. _He could just imagine the thoughts that had gone through Gabriel's head when she had mentioned decorating Azrael's Sanctuary; the guys never would've let him live that down._ "And has he succeeded in redirecting your attention?"

"For now."

He shook his head and chuckled at the mischievous grin that accompanied her words. "I just knew Guerin was gonna have his hands full with you."

Maria's expression sobered. "Better me than some terrorist trying to kill him."

"Hey, you can't think of all the things that could go wrong; that'll just drive you insane. Michael was trained by the best and he's survived missions that in all reality shouldn't have come to an end with anything but a pile of dead bodies."

_Was that supposed to be comforting?_ "Who would be notified if anything happened to him?" She sighed quietly and shook her head. "I know you're trying to be… positive so I don't worry, and I appreciate that, but just tell me the truth."

"Most of us don't have anyone to notify; the type of ops we work aren't generally handed out to agents with families waiting for them at home."

"Because it makes explanations easier for the Company when their agents come home in a body bag?" Her voice was low out of respect for the church, but it was filled with anger nonetheless. "How can you be part of an organization like that?"

"It's a job that has to be done, Maria; I could sit here and try like hell to explain it to you, but you're never gonna understand it." He rubbed his eyes and glanced to the side when a woman walked past them and made her way to the front of the church. "People walk around every single day, takin' freedom for granted, but it has a cost that they don't wanna know anything about. As long as their lives aren't interrupted by the uglier side of life they prefer to remain blissfully ignorant. If we were to release what we do to the public… if we were to make it known that we take an aggressive stance and remove threats usin' the methods that we use, the very people that we work to protect would turn on us."

"What?"

"I remember your reaction the day I told you that Michael was a sniper." He nodded when her gaze shot to him. "I didn't need verbal confirmation to know that you didn't approve of his occupation then and I don't need it now. If you break it down to its simplest form, he's paid to kill people… it's what the Company pays most of its agents to do. Not every assignment requires a kill shot, but there are enough of them that do… and you don't approve of that."

Maria sighed. Most of what Indigo was saying was true. It was easier to turn a blind eye to the sordid reality he was depicting, but now that Michael was involved in that picture she didn't know what to think; life wasn't black and white anymore. "I'm not so naïve that I think terrorists can be reasoned with, Indigo… I know that it's necessary for covert organizations like the Company to exist to protect freedom, but…"

"But, you'd be a lot more comfortable with the idea if you didn't know anyone involved in it, wouldn't you? Once you can put a name and a face to those who are charged with the safekeeping of liberty you can't pretend to not know the cost any longer."

"He's been gone for two weeks…" She sighed in frustration. "I guess I can see why so many agents remain unattached."

"Hell, most agents don't even screw the same person on a regular basis."

Maria instinctively denied what Indigo was implying. It was an easy, albeit mistaken, assumption to make considering Michael's way with women, but they were not sleeping together. Absolutely not. "Oh, no, Michael and I aren't…"

Indigo let that go but his thoughts were running rampant as he faced the front of the church. _If Guerin wasn't fuckin' her, why was she still around? The man wasn't the type of person to form attachments that lasted more than a few hours… a night at the most… so what other reason was there for her to be livin' with the man?_

Maria could read the thoughts written so clearly on his face. "You're wondering why I'm still around, aren't you?"

"The thought crossed my mind, but it's really none of my business." He grinned as he glanced at her. "Unless you wanna tell me."

She shook her head. "Nope."

"Didn't think so."

They started walking again, both lost in their own thoughts. Maria raised her head to look at the sky, wishing that Michael was with her. _Which Michael?_ She shook her head, not wanting to think about the answer to that question. "So, are you gonna be around for Christmas?" she asked.

Indigo smiled like a little kid, happy to switch to a more pleasant subject. "Huh-uh, I'll be flyin' back home tomorrow mornin'. I've got three ladies at home that'll be waitin' to spoil me rotten over Christmas and since Christmas Eve is just a couple days away I can't risk not bein' there. What about you? Got any plans?"

Maria sighed. _There was nothing much to do for her… no Michael, no Mom, no Liz, no friends… no one. _"I'm gonna help Father Augustine with his Christmas dinner for the homeless. After that I don't really have any plans."

Reading the loneliness on her face, Indigo decided that the poor girl needed a friend. And some company. "Well, can I talk you into goin' to dinner with me tonight?"

Maria smiled at him. "I think you already have."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Michael reclined back on the bed in his hotel room, the fingers of his right hand drumming against his chest as he tried to focus on anything but the boredom that was nearly driving him out of his mind. They were rapidly closing in on a month in Cairo and they still hadn't found Basara; there had been several times that they had come close, but the terrorist was just as good as his reputation claimed he was.

Without his permission his mind wandered to Maria and he wondered what she was doing. He felt the weirdest twisting, knotting sensation in his chest and he quickly sat up, swallowing hard as he shook his head and shoved himself to his feet. _No. There was no way that he missed that mouth on legs… it was too absurd to be plausible. She talked all the damn time, she refused to have sex with him, and she was always comparing him to his counterpart and finding him lacking in some way or other. _He nodded to himself, feeling better after listing some of her faults. _Of course, on the other hand, she was an amazing cook, she was actually pretty good company at times, he had started to almost enjoy having her around the house… _He frowned when his mind took off on its own journey and when he realized that the strange feeling in his chest was starting to feel constricted he stood and started to pace. _He didn't miss her… he didn't!_

He glanced at the bedside clock before grabbing his shoulder holster and sliding his arms into it. It was way too early to be dragging Marcos out, but he had to do something; he was going out to rattle some cages and see if he could get some Intel. He pulled a jacket on to cover the weapons, grabbed his key and shoved it in his pocket, as he reached for the door.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Maria leaned against the counter and watched the people in the bar as they stayed within their own little groups; it was rare for any of them to step outside of their chosen groups or for the ones who preferred their own company to really associate with anyone else. That hadn't changed at any point during Christmas and now, even as the New Year was quickly approaching there was no festive atmosphere; it was business as usual and no one questioned it or seemed interested in changing it.

"No big plans for New Year's Eve?"

She straightened up and looked at the woman who had spoken, surprised to see Stone sitting on one of the bar stools. She hadn't seen the agent in a couple of weeks and she had assumed she was on an assignment. She wondered if Michael had been in contact with the woman sitting on the other side of the counter. "No, I told Gabriel I'd work since a couple of the other waitresses did have plans and I wasn't really doing anything anyway. What about you? I haven't seen you around in a while."

"How about a whiskey neat?"

_Ooookay, so they weren't going to discuss that topic._ Maria moved to get the drink, rolling her eyes at the woman's tone.

Stone chuckled quietly as she watched the waitress; she had been in a couple of nights before when the woman had been off so she had heard the rumors going around about Basara. "It's killin' you to not ask, isn't it?" She was certain she was right when Maria tensed up before forcing herself to relax. The glass of whiskey was carefully placed on the counter in front of her, but her sharp gaze detected the slight tremor in the woman's hand as she pulled it back. "Michael can handle himself," she said before taking a drink of the amber liquid.

"I didn't ask," Maria snapped.

"Uh-huh, and you don't go to St. Vincent's every night and light a candle for him either, do you? Prayer doesn't save anyone, kid."

Maria frowned at the agent's cynical tone. "You don't know that."

For just the briefest moment the expression in Stone's eyes shifted from anger to fear to anguish, but then they turned cold and hard once more. "Don't tell me what I know; you don't know me and we're not about to become friends and share our personal thoughts and feelings with each other."

Maria shook her head, annoyed by the woman's behavior. "Why are you even talking to me?"

"I have no idea." She turned her head to scan the bar once more, frowning when no one caught her attention. She finished the drink and motioned for another, forcing her mind to avoid moving into the past and treading on memories that were still too painful to disturb.

"Maybe I could help if you'd tell me who you're looking for," Maria offered when the woman's gaze swept over the patrons again.

"Someone to fuck." Her predatory gaze swung back to the waitress. "I doubt you'll be very helpful in that area."

"Hmmm, as tempting as the thought of pimping you out is, I think I'll pass." Maria ignored Stone and went back to her customers, doing her best to avoid the thoughts that kept wanting to surface. It had been more than a month without a word from Michael and the constant speculation surrounding the length of his mission and Basara wasn't helping her to sleep any better at night.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Marcos stood over Basara's lifeless body, satisfied that the potential threat that the terrorist had represented in regards to his future had died with him. He had been looking into the man's eyes and he had seen the moment of fear when he had delivered the man's death sentence. True to his word, Michael hadn't taken the shot until Marcos had made his statement, and the terrorist hadn't been quick enough to avoid the sniper's bullet as it had hit him right between the eyes.

They had lured Basara out in broad daylight, risking retaliation by any of his associates so that Marcos could have his revenge. Five weeks of back alley meetings, information that had lead them in circles, and several traps set up by third parties had left them worn out and exhausted, and he knew he owed Michael big after this mission.

He waited with the body until Xavier's cleanup crew arrived to dispose of the body and settle any questions that the authorities had. Several hours later he was finally able to make his way back to the hotel and he knocked on the door to the other man's room. It was opened within seconds and he entered without an invitation.

"Everything go okay?" Michael asked, unconcerned. He had gone back to the hotel after taking Basara out, ready to get his things together so they could leave Cairo on the first available plane.

"Xavier covered all the bases as usual, so we're in the clear. I'm gonna pack and take a shower so we can go home; the plane'll be on the tarmac within the next hour."

"How long before you're ready?"

Marcos stared hard at the younger man, barely making his features out under the interior lighting of the hotel room. "Since when are you in a hurry to get home?"

"Since I've been in this shithole for five weeks," Michael snapped, unwilling to examine his reasons behind wanting to expedite their departure. "So, if we could hurry this along I'd appreciate it."

"All right," Marcos agreed, unwilling to start an argument that would put Michael in a bad mood for the entire trip home, "give me half an hour and I'll be ready."

They were crossing the tarmac to board the plane an hour later when all hell broke loose and bullets started ricocheting off of the ground around them as they ran for the steps that led up into the plane. Marcos misjudged the last step and tripped, dropping out of the gunman's sights momentarily. Michael turned to fire at their would-be assassin, keeping him occupied until Marcos could get inside.

He swore when a bullet hit one of the rails and ricocheted off, hitting him in the side and burning like hell as it embedded itself beneath his flesh. "Fuck!" He dropped down out of sight as he reloaded and before he could stand up again he heard a barrage of gunfire coming from the opposite side where the shooter had been firing from.

He looked behind him when Marcos' hand settled on his shoulder. "It's more of Xavier's guys; he said they'll take care of it and we're free to go."

"Who the fuck was shootin' at us?" Michael snarled as the co-pilot shut the door behind them, locking it into place before heading back to the cockpit.

"One of Basara's people." Marcos narrowed his eyes as he looked at Michael. "He didn't get you, did he?"

"Nah, man, I'm fine; a few scratches that I think I'll clean out once we take off, but other than that I'm good." He ignored the pain in his side as they settled into the plush seats on opposite sides of the plane, belting themselves in for takeoff. As soon as they were in the air Michael grabbed his bag and stood up. "I'm gonna hit the head to clean up…" He shook his head when he realized that Marcos was already on the phone with Cailyn.

With the way his luck had been going for the past few months he'd probably spend the entire flight listening to the man's conversations with his soon-to-be-fiancé. Since they had been spending so much time together he had come to the realization that Marcos was completely out of his mind. He shook his head as he entered the small lavatory and he pulled his shirt up to get a better look at the wound. Marcos had always seemed highly intelligent and job-oriented, but now he knew better, and the next eighteen hours were going to be excruciating, he could just feel it.

He had to twist from the waist up to see where the bullet had entered and he frowned at his reflection in the mirror. _Damn it! His medical kit wasn't gonna help him one damn bit because he wasn't gonna be able to get the fucking bullet out. It had entered too far back and there was no way for him to physically remove it._ He cleaned up as well as he could before packing gauze over the still bleeding wound and taping it heavily so he wouldn't bleed all over the place. _He would deal with it when he got home,_ he thought as he pulled his dark shirt down to cover the gauze.

Michael walked back out to take his seat, reaching it just as a wave of dizziness swept over him. _It had to be the altitude making him dizzy. It wasn't the bullet wound… he was just exhausted._

"Hey, you okay?" Marcos asked when Michael stumbled and practically fell into his seat. He shrugged when the other man mumbled something about taking a nap before he slid to one side.

Michael felt his grip on consciousness slipping away and he knew he was losing the fight with the darkness trying to pull him under. _Fuck,_ he thought as the darkness swept over him, _this wasn't supposed to happen;_ _he didn't wanna leave that Maria girl alone…_ It was his last coherent thought for several hours.


	33. Chapter 33

**Part 32**

Maria slept fitfully, waking throughout the night with the unshakable feeling that something had happened to Michael. It had started the day before and she had gone to Gabriel to ask if he had heard anything, but he hadn't had any information to share with her.

She had been distracted most of the evening during her shift and he had finally sent her home early, instructing her to get some rest and promising to call her if he heard anything. After wandering around the house for a while she had taken a bath hoping it would help her relax so she could sleep.

She was up and down most of the evening and well after midnight, unable to sleep for more than an hour or two at a time. It was during one of the brief sleeping fits that she heard the garage door opening.

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Michael moved slowly as he stood and carefully swung his leg over the seat; he was doing his best to be as quiet as possible as he unlocked the door and walked inside. He knew Maria was asleep and he didn't want her to wake up and see him like this. He didn't examine his feelings on that subject any closer, ignoring them as he tried to avoid bumping into anything.

If he could make it past her bedroom and into his without waking her he'd be home free. His vision was graying out at the edges but he knew he had to patch himself up before he passed out again. He stumbled into his room and grabbed the edge of the dresser when he felt his knees begin to buckle.

"Michael?"

He winced when he heard her speak up behind him.

"What's… oh, my God, you're bleeding! What happened?" Maria tried to contain the panic that automatically rose to the surface at the sight of him bleeding, but it wasn't easy.

"What happened?" he snapped, pain making his temper flare. He wasn't going to be able to do this himself; the bullet was in his side and he couldn't reach it to remove it. "I took a fuckin' bullet and I haven't got it out yet." He drew several shallow breaths. "There's a surgical kit in the bathroom, in the cabinet behind the door… get it and get some towels."

Maria forced her mind to focus on the task at hand and she hurried to get what he needed. _What on earth was he doing here? Didn't Marcos have doctors to help the agents who worked for him? Unless…_ she chewed on her lips as she cast about for an answer. Michael wouldn't want to risk going to a doctor, not even one mandated by Marcos, even though any physician could potentially be paid to keep quiet about mysterious blood abnormalities or other weird happenings.

"Put the towels on the bed," he panted. Sweat was breaking out all over his body and he was starting to shake. He reached up, trying his best to get his shirt off with one hand.

"Here, let me help you." Maria quickly stripped the shirt off of him and helped him over to the bed. He fell back against the mattress and she leaned over him, patting his cheeks insistently when his eyes slid closed. Fear seized her as her brain replayed images of Michael's last moments, paralyzing her. "Michael, I need you to stay with me… tell me what to do."

"Get the bullet out," he whispered harshly.

Maria's gaze slid to his side and she swallowed hard when she saw the blood-soaked gauze taped to his side. _Oh God, he was serious! He wanted her to remove the bullet? _Hysteria started to rise. _She wouldn't be able to do it, she wouldn't! Oh, God, why did he have to ask her to do that?_ She raised her eyes to watch him and saw his face turn grey with pain. She took a deep breath. She had to do it. There was nobody else around and she wasn't going to lose him again. With trembling hands, she carefully removed the gauze, unable to look away from the blood seeping out from the open wound.

"Bullet's not in very deep," he slurred. "Just under the skin."

Her stomach rolled sickeningly and she just knew she was going to lose her dinner. She opened the kit and looked at the stainless steel instruments inside, horrified by what they represented, and wondering how many times he had used them on himself.

"Get the ones that look like a combination of scissors and tweezers." He nodded when she held them up. "Good. Take 'em in the bathroom and pour alcohol over them, but don't dry 'em off." He forced himself to focus on his breathing until she came back out.

Maria followed his instructions without questioning him; he obviously knew what needed to be done. "Now what?"

He shifted onto his left side and his right hand settled just behind the wound. "I'm gonna hold the bullet still, but I need you to go in and get it."

"How will I know - "

"You'll know when you've got the bullet, believe me. You just aim for the spot directly between my fingers and you'll find it." He reached up to still her trembling hand. "You can do this, Maria. If I pass out, just get that bullet out, clean the wound, pour alcohol over it, and bandage it. After that, just let me sleep, okay?" He stared directly into her eyes. "I'll be fine."

Maria swallowed hard and her free hand settled over the one he was using to keep the bullet steady. She felt nauseous as the steel instrument slid into the open wound and she froze when the pointed tip nudged something solid and she felt him groan. She forced herself to open the pincers and she felt them lock around the bullet.

Slowly, she pulled the bullet from his body and she felt his hand go lax beneath hers. She dropped the instrument on the towel beside him and leaned over him again, terrified that he wasn't breathing. Relief flooded her system when she realized that he was breathing and his pulse was steady and strong. She hurried to clean the wound out and coat it with an antiseptic before packing fresh gauze over it and taping it down.

Finished with that she cleaned everything up and sterilized the instrument she had used before putting it away, praying she never had to see it again. She pulled the towel out from under him and carried it to the laundry room, starting the washer and throwing it in. Going back to his room she stood over him, staring at him as he slept. She knelt down to unlace his boots and pull them off before maneuvering him fully onto the bed; she reached up to unbuckle his belt, unsnap and unzip his cargo pants, pulling them off and leaving him in just a pair of boxer shorts before covering him up.

On trembling legs, Maria walked back to her own bedroom and collapsed on her bed, anxious and exhausted. Tears rolled down her cheeks, the emotions too great to contain after seeing him like that. She could've lost him… again. The pain that seized her in that moment was so great that she didn't feel as though her physical body could contain it and she rolled over, crying into her pillow and sobbing until she was unable to hold onto consciousness any longer.

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Michael groaned as light registered through his closed eyelids and he wondered what had caused him to sleep so late. It took a moment to remember what had happened the day before and he bent his right arm at the elbow as he gently prodded his side around the bullet wound. He forced himself to sit up, his movements slow and careful as he tried to control the nausea that rolled to life with even the slightest motion.

"What're you doing?"

He was holding onto the edge of the nightstand, testing his legs to make sure they would support his weight when Maria spoke up from the doorway. "Tryin' to get vertical," he growled.

"You shouldn't be out of bed," she scolded, secretly relieved to see him standing upright.

"Would you rather I piss on myself?" He shot a warning look in her direction and shook his head. "Don't even offer to help; I'm more than capable of takin' a piss by myself." He glared at the wide expanse of floor between him and the bathroom.

"Will you let me help you to the bathroom door, at least?"

"Look, if you're that desperate to get your hands on my dick I can certainly accommodate you, but not like this." His jaw was set stubbornly as he shook his head again. "I don't need any help takin' a piss. Fuck no."

"Suit yourself," Maria snapped, wishing she could control her emotions where he was concerned.

"Why don't you make yourself useful… go make me somethin' to eat."

Maria was fuming as she stormed through the house after being summarily dismissed by the temperamental hybrid. _God, he was so infuriating!_ "Go make me something to eat," she mocked, snarling the words under her breath. "Yeah, I'll make you something to eat, you pissy, ungrateful, arrogant ass."

She was opening the refrigerator door when she heard a loud thud and she immediately forgot that she was angry with him as she ran back through the house towards the bedrooms. She found him on his knees in the bedroom, his right hand braced on the floor while his left hand was splayed wide over the gauze bandage that had a quarter-sized red spot in the center.

"I don't wanna hear one word about how you don't need any help because you're gonna get it, like it or not." Her hands slid against his sweat-slick skin as she struggled to help him up onto his feet.

_Was this normal?_ Michael wondered, leaning heavily on her. _The wound wasn't that serious, so why was he so weak and disoriented?_

"Because you've been unconscious for sixteen hours and who knows how long it's been since you last ate."

He scowled at her chastising tone, realizing that he had spoken his thoughts aloud and he glanced out through the windows. _Sixteen hours?_ The sun was hanging low in the western sky which meant that it was way past morning. "What time is it?"

"A little after five."

He braced his left hand on the mattress as he was carefully lowered to a sitting position and he winced when he shifted and his side reminded him that he was injured. He was silent as she urged him to lie back, hating that he needed her help, but resigned to the fact that he had no other choice for now.

Maria glanced at him, recognizing the look on his face; she knew he didn't like having to accept her help but there was nothing he could do about it until the wound had healed enough that it wouldn't require a bandage. Vulnerability was not something that he handled well, something that was apparently universal to any Michael Guerin. She easily identified the signs of discomfort and she knew that allowing someone else to take care of him was as foreign to him as it had been to her Michael at one time.

She peeled the medical tape from his skin and removed the bloody bandage, discarding it before leaning over him to check the wound. Thankfully there were no signs of infection, no redness or fevered skin, so she cleaned and redressed the wound before leaving him to fix dinner.

Michael's left hand settled over the newly-bandaged wound and he stared at the ceiling as he considered Maria's actions. He hated feeling vulnerable, hated feeling like his well-being was in someone else's hands, but she hadn't made a big deal of taking care of him or made him feel as if he owed her for her help. Something inside of him responded to her gentle, caring touch, but he wasn't prepared to deal with it so he shoved it back down where he wouldn't have to think about it.

He stared at the cabinet that housed the television, frowning when he recalled that he hadn't yet replaced the batteries in the remote. _Damn it!_ He was gonna have to go in the living room so he could find something to watch with the added convenience of a working remote control.

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Maria put the finishing touches on the pot of homemade chicken soup and stirred it for several minutes before putting the lid on it and turning the burner down. She left the soup to simmer while she went to check on Michael to see if he felt up to coming to the table to eat. She doubted it, but she also knew that he wouldn't appreciate it if she just assumed he couldn't make it to the table and took his dinner to him.

She had just passed her bedroom when she heard the hushed voices coming from inside and a glance to her left revealed the muted light coming from the television set that she hadn't left on. She pushed the door wide and stepped into her bedroom, unprepared for the sight that awaited her.

Michael was sprawled out in her bed, sound asleep, while the television played in the background. He looked so peaceful that she hated to wake him, but he was already weak from a combination of blood loss and not eating. The longer he went without eating the weaker he was going to get so she knew she was going to have to wake him up and try to get him to eat something.

She was certain that he had been on his way into the living room when he had probably started to feel like he was going to pass out, and instead of calling for help he had just detoured into her bedroom.

He stirred when she called him and she was pretty sure that was a good sign. If nothing else, at least he was coherent enough to respond to her calling his name. He had most likely been asleep for the past hour and knowing his tendency to react like a wounded bear when awakened she wasn't looking forward to getting him up. She tipped her head to one side, studying the excessive amount of bare, tanned skin available to her searching gaze. _Was it wrong to notice him this way while he was practically unconscious?_ she wondered. She shook herself out of her thoughts and called his name again, raising her voice just enough to catch his attention.


	34. Chapter 34

**Part 33**

Michael opened his eyes, blinking slowly as he looked around the room in confusion. He vaguely remembered coming into her bedroom because the living room was just too far away and despite the desire to snap at her and somehow place the blame for his current location on her he still felt tired and worn out so he let it pass.

"Hey, dinner's ready and I know you probably don't feel like it, but you need to try to eat something. The longer you go without eating the weaker you're gonna feel." She watched him push himself up into a sitting position, breaking out into a sweat when it took more of an effort than it should have. "Do you feel like eating in the kitchen or do you want me to bring your dinner to you?"

He started to swing his legs over the side of the bed but a wave of dizziness caused the room to swim drunkenly before his eyes so he slowly leaned back against the headboard. "Maybe I'll just stay here," he muttered. "Hey, did you happen to pick up that new movie that I said I wanted to see?"

She nodded affirmatively. "Do you want me to bring it in here so you can watch it?"

"Why else would I ask that question?" he snapped irritably.

Maria had to bite her tongue to avoid lashing out in response to his tone but she managed to hold it in until she got to the kitchen. _God, why did he have to be so damned difficult?_ She placed the bed tray on the counter and filled a bowl with soup before sitting it on the tray along with a saucer containing a handful of crackers. After pouring a carbonated soda into a chilled glass she placed it on the tray and carried it to him, stopping in the living room to retrieve his movie.

"What the fuck is this?" he snapped when she settled the tray over his lap and moved to put the movie into the player beneath the television set. "I'm not a six-year-old who stayed home from school with an upset stomach."

"No, you're a twenty-five-year-old man who's acting like a six-year-old. The flight from Cairo took, what, nineteen or twenty hours? Then another hour to get home, which, by the way tacks on another eighteen hours. So, you haven't eaten in probably forty hours, give or take an hour or two; you're weak and nauseas no matter how much you deny it, and if you eat a heavy meal, trust me, you're gonna regret it."

Michael dragged the spoon through the bowl of soup and as the scent wafted up to tease his nose his mouth watered and his stomach rumbled in anticipation. He glanced up when the remote for the DVD player landed on the bed next to his right leg, frowning when he realized that Maria was on her way out of the room. "Where're you goin'?"

"You're not in any mood for company so I'm gonna go watch TV in the living room."

His appetite faded into the background when she continued on her way out of the room and he turned his attention back to his dinner. _It wasn't soup out of a can,_ he thought as he dragged his spoon through the noodles, small chunks of chicken, diced celery and carrots. He had noticed that she hardly ever used anything that came out of a can, claiming that it was processed, full of preservatives, and lacking in any inherent nutritional value.

He suddenly became annoyed when she didn't come back as he had expected her to do and he glanced around, looking for something he could use to get her attention. He winced as he reached for the book on the nightstand and he felt his wounded body protest against the movement. He transferred the book to his left hand and threw it as well as he could, snarling under his breath when it hit the doorframe and fell to the floor. He looked around for something else to throw, even going so far as to consider using his rarely-used powers to do so as his gaze settled on the tray in front of him. _She's gonna be pissed._ He didn't care. He was tired of sitting around by himself and if she was gonna be around anyway she could at least make herself useful and keep him company.

He took the crackers off of the saucer and stacked them on the tray before picking the saucer up and throwing it just by willing it. Satisfied that he had made enough noise, he nodded. _Those powers came in handy now that he had started to get a grasp on them._ Like the book, it hit the doorframe, but it clattered loudly as it hit the floor and Maria was standing in the doorway before the saucer had settled into place.

"What're you doing?" she asked as she leaned down to pick up the saucer and book he had thrown. She glanced at the tray as she walked around the bed to put the book back on the nightstand. "You're not eating."

"You said you were gonna watch this movie when we saw the previews."

Maria bit back a smile at his petulant tone. "You're also irritable and not in the mood - "

"Yeah, whatever. You could at least stick around while I eat. What if I choked on my food?" He pointed at the saucer in her hand. "See what I had to do just to get your attention? I could die in the time it takes for you to get in here."

"Fine," she gave in, shaking her head as she set the saucer on the nightstand. "I'll stay in here and watch the movie with you as long as you eat your dinner and be quiet. And eat slowly because if you eat too fast you're not gonna keep it down."

He didn't argue with her for once; he just settled back more comfortably and followed her directions, eating slowly and savoring every bite. He paused the movie when he was finished, intending to start it again when she came back with a second bowl of soup.

Maria waited several minutes before she walked back to her room, empty-handed. She had been pretty sure that he wouldn't stay awake for very long after eating and she had been right. He had slid down under the covers, curled up on his side facing the TV, but he was sound asleep. She crept around the bed and placed her palm against his forehead, checking for any sign of fever. Once she was convinced that he was fine she turned the TV off, tugged the blankets up over his shoulder, and because she couldn't help herself, she leaned down over him and pressed a kiss to his temple.

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Michael was dozing on the couch a couple of days later when the sound of jingling keys woke him up. He rubbed his eyes as he sat up, noticing that it was early evening.

"Where're you goin'?" he asked when Maria came in and replaced the glass of lemonade on the coffee table with a fresh glass.

"I've gotta go to work," she answered, anticipating his arguments. "I've already called in twice this week to stay home and take care of you. Which I didn't mind," she hurried to add, "but you're doing just fine now and Gabriel needs me because he's short-handed tonight."

"What am I supposed to do for dinner?" he asked, pouting because she wasn't going to be there to take care of him.

Maria sighed. She was afraid that she had spoiled him. "There's a casserole in the oven and a salad in the refrigerator; let the casserole bake for an hour and then take it out. All you have to do is take it out of the oven and put it on a plate. Oh, and there are a couple of movies on the coffee table; I picked them up for you when I ran to the store earlier. The clerk assured me there was plenty of action, violence, and guns, so you should enjoy them."

Michael wandered through the house after she left, and for the first time in his life he was unnerved by the silence.

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"How's Guerin doin'?" Gabriel asked after everyone else had left for the night.

"Much better. I think he's finally getting over that cold." Michael hadn't wanted anyone to know that he had been wounded on his last assignment, so he had told her to make something up if anyone asked about him.

"Well, it's that time of the year again, and if he had that bug that's been goin' around I can understand why it knocked him on his ass." He watched her as she twisted the strap of her purse around her hand before untwisting it and doing it all over again. He knew she wouldn't have left Guerin alone if she didn't think he was well enough to be left on his own, but he had a feeling she would've been much more at ease if the man had been at the bar where she could've been keeping an eye on him.

"I'd better get going, Gabriel."

Maria drove in silence, stopping at the twenty-four hour supermarket in the small town about half an hour from home. She wanted to pick up some fresh strawberries for breakfast; Michael loved them on his pancakes and she knew they were out of them. She was studying the available selection of strawberries when a young couple caught her attention. They were arguing over something that was probably trivial but seemed monumental in that moment. The girl suddenly turned and stalked away and the guy shook his head and sighed in exasperation before chasing after her. He grabbed her arm, holding her still so he could move in front of her.

"Y'know you're gonna forgive me," he said, his tone teasing.

"Maybe later, but right now I don't even wanna see you."

"Ah, c'mon, y'know you love me, honey."

Maria snorted with laughter when the girl capitulated, going willingly into his arms and hugging him tightly. _Come on, honey, we don't have to lie._ The memory of Michael's words came back to her and she smiled at them. His voice, low and gruff as he implied that there was more to the scene their friends had walked in on than there really was. It wasn't until much later that she had realized that he had done it to get a rise out of her and to prevent anyone from detecting that something _real_ had happened between them.

The smile began to fade when she felt something in her chest begin to tear and she turned to hurry from the store. She bypassed the Range Rover in favor of walking along the deserted streets of the small town, her arms wrapped tightly around her chest in an effort to hold herself together. The pressure in her chest was building and the feeling that something inside was being torn only increased as the pain she had been burying for so long clawed to get out.

Without even realizing it she began to run, paying no attention to where she was going, just knowing that she needed to outrun the pain. She entered a small park, the chains on the swings creaking ominously as they swayed back and forth, put into motion by the cool wind blowing across the playground.

She stumbled along, uncaring of the branches that slashed against the bare flesh of her arms and not feeling the cold air as it brushed over her exposed skin. The tear in her chest was getting bigger and she felt like she was being shredded from the inside out as the pain slowly dragged itself to the surface, refusing to be denied any longer.

She tripped on one of the railroad ties that had been placed on either side of the path that wound through the park and she hit her knees when she lost her balance. Her hands shot out to stop her descent and bits of gravel dug into her palms as they slid against the uneven ground. The physical pain went unnoticed, and after several attempts to push herself to her feet she gave up and shifted around so she was sitting on the hard ground.

Tears ran down her cheeks, forced from deep within despite her attempts to contain them. She had managed to avoid dealing with losing Michael for months, focusing only on her belief that she could change time, events, and alter her own reality to bring him back, but time was passing and she had achieved none of those things. He was still lost to her and as she sat there in a crumpled, hopeless, and shattered heap on the ground, the pain that she had been denying for so long finally broke free.

The grief hit her in unrelenting waves, stripping away all of her defenses and leaving her feeling broken and more alone than she had ever felt in her life. Any awareness of her surroundings was lost as the first choked, agonized sob was ripped from the very depths of her soul.

Images of Michael, his body broken and bloody as he lay on the ground next to a river intertwined with images of another Michael, wounded in a gun battle and suffering alone for hours as his life slowly bled away. _Why could she save one but not the other? Why had she been sent to a place where she would have to deal with the possibility of losing him all over again?_ It was beyond the boundaries of what should ever be asked of any one single person.

Her fisted hands pounded against the ground in a sad mimicry of the pain that was assaulting her in a constant, unending onslaught. She leaned forward over her hands, her forehead braced against them as she rocked back and forth in an effort to shield herself against the pain. It was too much to control and she suddenly realized that she was tired of trying to hold it in, trying to prevent the pain from gaining a foothold. It had already escaped the confines holding it at bay; it was free, and it demanded recognition.

She never registered the sound of her own screams as they split the cold night air, unaware of anything beyond the bottomless well of pain and agony that had been laid open, leaving her soul raw and exposed.

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Michael sat up in bed and listened to the silence for several minutes before he reached over and turned on the lamp that sat on the nightstand. He glanced at the alarm clock to the right of the lamp and frowned when he saw that it was nearly four in the morning.

_Where was Maria at?_ A quarter past three wasn't that unusual, but she was much later than normal and that wasn't like her. He glanced around, looking for his cell phone and then remembered that he wasn't in his own room. He had no understanding or explanation for his sudden preference for Maria's bed because it wasn't like she had changed her mind about them having sex. But, somehow, since the first night she had let him sleep in her bed while he was healing from the gunshot wound, he had managed to find his way back in there and she hadn't kicked him out yet.

He swung his legs over the side of the bed and stood up, stretching before going in search of his cell phone. He found it on the coffee table next to the movies she had picked up for him and he frowned when he checked it and didn't see any missed calls. He dialed her number and waited, counting the rings until it went to voicemail. _Why wasn't she answering? She never got home this late and he was sure she would've called if she had run into trouble._

He paced back and forth in front of the television and for the first time it didn't occur to him to wonder why he was worried about her. He absently rubbed his palm over his chest, attempting to soothe the tight feeling that had taken up residence. _Maybe she forgot her phone. That made sense,_ he thought. _She was always forgetting something and running back for it at the last minute._ He moved through the house once more, searching for her phone without considering that if she had left it he would have found it when he was looking for his own phone a short while ago.

_Okay, maybe she had it with her and she just forgot to charge the damn thing._ He nodded to himself, satisfied with that answer. _That was the most likely reason… No, it still didn't explain why she hadn't made it home yet._ His left hand shot out to grab the back of the couch when his chest contracted again, the sensation almost crushing in its intensity. "What the fuck is goin' on?" he hissed under his breath. He doubled over, his fingers clenching in the cushion under his hand as he fought to catch his breath.

_Stop fighting it._ The words whispered across his subconscious and he obeyed them without question, opening his mind to… well, he didn't know what exactly he was opening his mind up to. _Something was wrong with Maria._ He didn't know what it was, but he was certain of it. He grabbed his cell phone and the keys for the motorcycle before running out to the garage and hitting the button to open the door.

It didn't occur to him that he had no idea where he was going until he hit the paved road at the end of his driveway. He only knew that heading towards L.A. made sense because she would've come home from work the same way she went to work. As he drove his eyes were continually scanning both sides of the road for the truck, hoping to see that she had pulled over for some innocuous reason like a flat tire.

He didn't pay much attention to the easing pressure in his chest until he drove through the small town where he shopped anytime there was the option of avoiding the overcrowded stores in L.A. As he passed the city limits sign for the town the pressure in his chest tightened once more and he slowed down. He located a side road and turned around, the sole of his left boot barely skimming the asphalt as he leaned into the turn and went back into town.

The town was silent, the traffic lights blinking red or yellow in deference to the late hour. He drove slowly, letting the feeling in his chest guide him. He turned into the parking lot of the twenty-four-hour supermarket, momentarily relieved when he saw the truck. He parked next to it and rushed inside, grabbing the first employee he could find and demanding any information the woman had. He walked back outside mere minutes later, having discovered that Maria had been in the store an hour earlier but had left without making a single purchase.

Unlocking the drivers' side door he leaned inside and quickly located her purse and cell phone lying on the passengers' seat under her jacket. He sat behind the wheel for a few minutes, scanning the area around the supermarket. It wasn't cold out, but it was cool enough that exposure to the temperatures for an extended amount of time was certain to be uncomfortable.

_Why would she just take off? It didn't make any sense for her to do anything like that. She could have been kidnapped, taken by someone who intended to hurt her in ways that he didn't even want to contemplate._ He had seen plenty of the ugliness that existed in the world and he didn't want to think about any of that in connection with her.

He slid out from under the steering wheel and locked the door before slamming it shut. He walked around the truck, testing the pressure in his chest and realizing that it lessened considerably when he moved north. Pocketing his keys he took off in that direction and he settled into a jog, his pace quickening the more the pressure eased. He was getting closer to her, he could feel it, but while the pressure was dissipating a sense of urgency was quickly replacing it.

A scream ripped through the silence of the early morning hour and his movements quickened in response to the agonized sound. He slowed to a walk when he entered the city park, looking around for anything that seemed out of place. He knew he was in the right vicinity because the pressure was completely gone; he didn't understand how this thing worked, he just knew that it was responsible for him locating Maria.


	35. Chapter 35

**Part 34**

Another scream shattered the stillness, weaker than the one before, and he ran towards it. He had been around enough violence to tell the difference between screams; she wasn't screaming as if she were being attacked. The sounds being issued from her throat were soul-deep, filled with agony and despair, but his heart still stuttered in his chest when he came upon her crumpled form.

He knelt down next to her and his right hand reached out to tentatively rest on her shaking shoulder. At least with a physical attacker he would have known what to do, but he was completely lost in this situation. There wasn't an attacker that he could fight, tear to shreds for hurting someone smaller and weaker.

"Maria." He called her name as he tried to lift her up from the ground. Blades of grass were clenched between her fingers where she had grabbed onto the only solid thing she could find in an effort to anchor herself. He had seen enough people suffering the emotional devastation of losing loved ones to battles, natural disasters, disease, and a multitude of other deadly thieves, to know that losing her lover had finally caught up with her. Something had finally triggered the switch on the ticking time bomb she had been carrying around inside of her for months.

He couldn't tell if she was physically hurt, but her skin was cold to the touch and she was completely unresponsive. He glanced around when another, weaker scream was ripped from her hoarse throat and he hoped like hell that no one called the cops and reported all the noise because it was going to be difficult to explain the situation.

_Okay, what was he supposed to do?_ He always made sure that he had no involvement with the people they were sent in to help, leaving all the touchy-feely crap up to people who actually gave a damn one way or the other. _If he could get her back to the truck without attracting any unwanted attention he could take her home and put her to bed… that would work, right? If she just went to sleep then everything would be fine when she woke up the next morning. Yeah, that made sense._

He looked down when she started to hyperventilate and he realized that his plan wasn't going to work. _She was going to pass out at this rate,_ he thought as he crouched down beside her. He had no idea how this was supposed to work, but he knew he had to get her back home before someone came along and wanted to know what was going on.

_Okay, he had seen people comforting others plenty of times and it hadn't looked all that difficult._ He studied the way her body was folded over and frowned as he tried to work out the mechanics. Somehow this always looked a lot simpler when it was someone else doing the comforting. _What the fuck was he supposed to do?_

_Put your arms around her, you moron!_ He reached down and pried her hands free of the ground before wrapping his hands around her upper arms and pulling her up. There was enough light from the basketball court on the other side of the playground to see that she was a mess. Her face was filthy from being on the ground; her tears had mixed with the dirt to leave muddy tracks on her face, her nose was running, her eyes were bloodshot, and her gaze was unfocused as she stared at him.

He felt completely stupid as he awkwardly put his arms around her and he tried to remember what he had seen others do in situations like this. They always pulled the person close and hugged them really tight, sometimes rocking them, sometimes not. _They never seemed to notice the gross stuff,_ he grumbled silently. _Things like mud and snot getting wiped on your clothes. _

Closing his eyes tightly and forcing himself not to think about it, he pulled her closer and frowned when her arms continued to hang limply at her sides. Her breathing was still harsh and uneven and this position was a lot more uncomfortable than it looked. His arms were stiff where they were wrapped around her shoulders and he couldn't imagine how this helped anyone.

_Moron!_ _You have no idea what you're doing!_ Like he needed his conscience to remind him of that little fact! He had no problem knowing what to do with his limbs when he was presented with any sexual situation, but this? Hell, he had no clue how to do this; he didn't know how close to hold her, where to put his hands, or what the fuck he was supposed to say to her.

He glanced down at the top of her head when he felt her begin to shake and heard the sobs being wrenched from her throat. He lowered his head when he heard broken words rushing out along with the painful, choking breaths she was forcing in and out.

_Okay, c'mon, Guerin, you can do this! You've lived through wars and survived in situations you never should've walked away from, so surely you can handle this!_ He took a deep breath and shifted around so he was facing her directly and he tried again.

"C'mon, Maria," he whispered gruffly. "Work with me here." This time when he wrapped his arms around her they settled into place with a little more accuracy and it didn't feel as forced. His right hand moved to the nape of her neck, sliding under her tangled hair and exerting just enough pressure to pull her in closer to his body. Her arms still remained at her sides and he knew that the lack of response wasn't good. _He had to reach her,_ he thought with just the slightest hint of desperation. _What was he gonna do if she went into shock?_ "Maria, you need to calm down, okay? I need you to try to focus on me… try to…" He shook his head. _This was stupid and it wasn't working._

"Don't leave," she choked out.

_Leave? Where the fuck did she think he was gonna go?_ He shook himself out of his thoughts when he realized that she wasn't talking to him. "C'mere," he muttered, pulling her snug up against his body. "Shhh, Maria… shhh… 'm never gonna leave you, Maria… never leave you…"

After a few minutes he felt her arms move as they crept around his waist and moments later her fingers dug into his shirt as if it were a lifeline. She began to calm by degrees and after a while he heard her breathe in, the sound congested and wet. He winced as he thought about what that meant to the front of his shirt, but he didn't loosen his embrace.

"We need to go home," he said when her breathing settled into a ragged, but even, rhythm. She nodded weakly but made no move to get up and he realized that in her condition she wasn't going to be able to walk back to the truck. It would be a lot faster to go get the truck and come back for her, but he couldn't just leave her in the park.

"Okay," he grumbled as he stood and lifted her up in his arms, "but I expect a damn good massage after all this because my back's gonna hurt like hell after luggin' you around." He walked for almost a mile before he made it back to the supermarket and when he placed her on her feet on the pavement he had to pin her to the side of the truck with his body to keep her from falling down. _At any other time he would've thoroughly enjoyed having her body plastered against the front of his, but this was probably… no, definitely, the most non-sexual position he had ever been in with her._ He shook those thoughts off and unlocked the passengers' side door, opening it wide enough that he could place her inside… He frowned as he glanced between her and his plush all-leather interior. And he didn't have anything to cover the seat with before putting her inside. _Okay, that is not the important thing here; leather can be cleaned, and you need to get her home as soon as possible,_ he reminded himself.

He pushed her purse and jacket onto the floor and picked her up once more, settling her in the seat and belting her in before closing the door and hurrying around to the other side. He paused when his gaze landed on the motorcycle and he was hit by another moment of indecision. He didn't like leaving it there but he couldn't exactly drive both vehicles and Maria was in no condition to make the trip on the back of the motorcycle.

_Damn it! If anything happened to it…_ He sighed and slid in behind the steering wheel. _He'd just have to hook the trailer up to the truck and come back for it after she fell asleep._ He turned the key in the ignition to start the engine and leaned over to check on her before he pulled out of the parking lot and headed for home.

Maria was still conscious when they pulled into the garage, but she made no move to get out on her own. He went to unlock the door to the house, leaving it standing open while he went back to get Maria. He leaned inside and was reaching across her body to unfasten the seatbelt when the lights inside the garage illuminated her features.

_Hell, he couldn't just put her to bed in this condition,_ he mused as he stared into her dull, listless green eyes. "Okay," he muttered, moving back without releasing the seatbelt, "just stay here for a couple more minutes."

He ran through the house and flipped the light switch on in his bedroom and then the bathroom as he made his way to the bathtub. He turned the water on, setting it to the right temperature before redirecting the water to the shower head. He adjusted the spray and grabbed a couple of towels, tossing them on the counter before moving to his closet and snatching a tee shirt off of a hanger. He tossed it into the bathroom where it landed on the towels before he moved into her bedroom and switched the lamp on so he could see to pull the covers back.

He paused in the laundry room to remove his boots, socks, and shirt. He unbuckled his belt and undid the snap and zipper on his cargo pants, stepping out of them and dropping them on the washer before glancing down at his boxer-clad dick. "This is in no way related to anything sexual," he said in a warning tone. "Don't you dare do a goddamned thing except what you're doin' right now." He stepped back down into the garage and walked around the truck to open the door again. He gathered Maria up in his arms and carried her inside, relieved when he set her down on her feet in the bathroom and he didn't have to hold her up as he had before. It concerned him when he started to remove her clothes and she didn't make a single protest.

He kept his thoughts focused on everything but the woman he was undressing, forcing them to stay as far away from anything with a sexual connotation as possible. She didn't say a word as he walked her over to the bathtub and helped her to step inside, holding her steady as he joined her and maneuvered her back under the warm spray.

He was completely out of his element here and his movements felt uncoordinated and awkward. He had showered with women before, of course, but they had never been even remotely connected to an effort to get clean. On the contrary, shared showers had always been about getting down and dirty. His dick gave a twitch of interest and he quickly shoved those thoughts aside and glared at it in warning as he reached for the shampoo on the built-in shelves in the corner. He frowned at the different bottles and finally just reached for his, squeezing some into the palm of his hand and tugging Maria out from under the spray and turning her around so her back was to the wall.

He worked the shampoo into her hair, his fingers massaging her scalp as the shampoo turned into a foamy lather. Her breath whispered across his skin as she dropped her forehead down to settle against his chest and his eyes rolled back in his head as he fought for control.

_He was not this fuckin' noble! How much was he supposed to take?_ He took a deep breath, feeling control settle over him once more. _Okay, he could do this… he could!_ He finished washing her hair and walked her backwards so he could rinse the shampoo out. Once that was finished he grabbed the little round fluffy thing she used and he squeezed a healthy amount of body wash onto it, rubbing it between his hands to work it up into a good lather. He shrugged as he studied the soapy thing, not certain that was the way it was supposed to work, but pretty sure that it would work for tonight.

He started a mental inventory of every ugly woman he had ever met in an effort to keep his dick under control as he started to run the fluffy soapy thing over her body, wincing when he saw the cuts, scrapes, and bruises she had collected from her meeting with the ground. He rinsed the soap out of the thing and hung it back on the hook before turning back to check on Maria. Satisfied that she was completely rinsed off he turned the faucets off and shoved the curtain back, stepping out onto the rug and moving across the room to grab the towels. She would bitch about the wet spots on the rug the next morning, but at this rate, he would welcome her fiery attitude if it meant that this silent person would go away.

He stepped out into his bedroom, stripping off the soaked boxers and drying off in record time before pulling on a fresh, dry pair of boxers. He hurried back into the bathroom and dried Maria off before wrapping a towel around her and helping her out of the bathtub to towel dry her hair. It wasn't until he pulled the tee shirt over her head and was doing his best to maneuver her arms through the short sleeves that he realized tears were still falling from her eyes.

He unknotted the towel he had wrapped around her and was tugging the tee shirt down over her bare hips when she suddenly leaned into him and wrapped her arms around his waist. "Oh, what're you doin'?" he whispered hoarsely. _She was gonna fuckin' kill him, touching him like this!_ He had to get her into bed before his dick made its interest in her known by standing up and introducing itself. "C'mon, you need to get some sleep."

She didn't release him so he extricated himself from her arms and picked her up, carrying her to her bedroom and placing her in her bed. He pulled the covers up over her, tucking them close to her body before leaning over and switching the lamp off. The sky was beginning to reveal the first pinkish-grey streaks of dawn and for the first time in longer than he could remember he didn't go out for his morning run by his own choice.

Instead he walked around the bed and sat down on her other side, leaning over Maria's still form to pick up the TV remote. He aimed it at the television and turned it on, making sure the volume was down low as he flipped through the channels looking for something to watch.

He propped a couple of pillows up behind his back and slouched down, his left arm flung over his head as he turned to look at the woman beside him. She had finally slipped into a light sleep and he could tell from the way she was breathing that it wouldn't be much longer before exhaustion pulled her all the way under.

He was beginning to doze off himself when he felt her roll over towards him and before long her hand had sought his out, linking their fingers together as she sighed peacefully. It wasn't long before he followed her into sleep, forgetting all about his plans to rush right back out to rescue his motorcycle from its abandonment in the supermarket parking lot.


	36. Chapter 36

**Part 35**

It was midmorning when Michael awoke and he turned his head to the side to check on Maria; she was still out cold and sleeping heavily. Sometime during the night she had moved closer to him and her right arm was draped over his stomach, the side of her face pressed against his ribcage. His first instinct was to push her away because the feelings that washed over him as he looked at her, lying against him so trustingly were unfamiliar and unwanted. But after a few moments he realized she was tensing up in response to the tension in his own body and he forced himself to relax once more.

He had never gone so far as to actually sleep with any woman because it just created too many complications the next morning. He had never even allowed himself to just doze off for a little while after sex, conscious of the way that women might view such an act of vulnerability. This felt different though and he could hear the internal battle being waged over the decision to either accept it or run from it.

Still undecided, he carefully eased out from under her arm, gently settling her against his pillows and tucking the blanket around her curled up form. After searching the covers he located the remote and turned the television off and set the remote on the nightstand before quietly leaving her room.

Dressed in a pair of loose-fitting jeans with the knees ripped out and an old gray tee shirt he padded barefoot into the kitchen and began the search for food. He couldn't identify half of the things in the refrigerator but whatever the stuff was, Maria managed to turn it into incredibly delicious meals. He finally settled for a bowl of cereal - one of the very few junk food items she let him put in the grocery cart when they went shopping - and a couple slices of toast along with a glass of orange juice.

When he was finished eating he rinsed his dishes and placed them on the rack in the dishwasher, then went back to the bathroom so he could gather up all of the clothes scattered around on the floor. He carried them back through the house and started the washer before dumping them inside along with his clothes. He was just closing the lid on the washer when he suddenly remembered that his motorcycle was still parked in the parking lot at the supermarket.

"Aw, fuck!" He kicked the side of the washer without thinking and then swore again when pain shot through his bare foot. He hopped up and down on his left foot for several seconds before he grabbed onto the washer for balance and leaned over to check his right foot. Bending his leg at the knee he brought his foot up and he rubbed his abused toes, trying to soothe the agonizing pain shooting through them.

As soon as the pain began to ease up he lowered his foot back to the ground and winced when his weight caused his toes to feel like there was too much pressure inside of them. _Great, that felt just fuckin' wonderful!_ He hobbled back to Maria's bedroom and stepped inside, checking on her before closing the blinds tightly to keep the sun out. He leaned over her and debated whether or not he should wake her to let her know he had to run out for a little while. _Nah,_ he thought, _he'd just leave her a note and let her sleep. God knew she needed it after last night._

He went to get a piece of paper from the desk and scribbled out a brief note, folding it in half and placing it on the nightstand where she'd see it if she woke up. Once that was done he finished getting ready and went outside to hook the trailer up behind the truck. He ran back in the house to double check all of the locks and to check on her once more before stopping in the kitchen to grab his wallet off of the counter.

_She needs to eat._ That thought stopped him in his tracks and he scratched his jaw as he glanced between the cabinets and the refrigerator. _He had to go to the store anyway,_ he rationalized. _He could just grab a frozen pizza._ He was on his way out the door when another thought stopped him cold. _You can do better than that; she sure as hell did better than that when you were recovering from that bullet wound. _

_What was wrong with pizza?_ he questioned silently. _It's not that it's pizza, it's that it's frozen pizza, dumbass! Did she give you soup out of a can? No, she made it herself._ "Yeah," he snorted, "I'm gonna make a homemade pizza." He paused on the threshold, prepared to step down into the garage, when it occurred to him that it couldn't be that difficult to make a pizza at home. _Right?_

He walked back into the kitchen and located the cookbook Maria used, rubbing his right hand over his chin as he thumbed through the pages. He finally located the section he was looking for and flipped through the pages several times over before he found one that sounded good. He scrawled the ingredients down on the notepad she kept on the counter and ripped the page out of the book before shoving it in his pocket and heading out to the truck.

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An hour later Michael was wandering through the aisles of the supermarket, trying to locate the items on his list. He had made quick work of loading the motorcycle on the trailer, relieved that it hadn't come to harm while it had sat unattended for so long.

It had taken less time to do that than it was taking to find a dozen ingredients that they probably already had at the house. But he didn't have the slightest idea where to look for anything except the basics, and Maria would have a fit if he messed up her organizational system.

"You look lost, young man," an elderly woman spoke up next to him as he stood in the aisle where the baking goods were shelved.

Michael glanced at her and shrugged. "You ever made a homemade pizza?" he asked, his eyes scanning over her bent form. She held onto a walker with a little basket attached to the front so that she could pick up a few things on her own.

"Of course." One frail, trembling hand extended in his direction and settled on his arm, patting it in a consoling gesture. "A word to the wise," she offered with a smile. "Don't stress yourself out over a homemade crust."

He frowned and looked down at the ingredients list again. "Well, the recipe said…" He trailed off when she shook her head.

"Trust me, young man, she'll appreciate the effort whether the crust is homemade or not."

"What? No, it's not - "

"Not for someone special?" she interrupted with a smile. "Of course not." She deftly removed the list from his hand and in a large, uneven scrawl, wrote out a couple of words before handing it back to him. "You'll find that over in the frozen food section; it's the best pre-made pizza crust you can buy." She chuckled. "If you're anything like my Earl, your good intentions with this homemade crust will turn her kitchen into a floured nightmare, and this will be much more appreciated."

After the old woman went on her way, her walker rolling and scraping against the floor with every other couple of steps, he looked down at the list again. _Okay, well, it didn't seem quite so intimidating if he didn't have to make the crust from scratch. The recipe book had said something about kneading the dough… like he knew what the fuck that meant. This was much better._

He finished picking up everything on the list and hurried back home, running inside to check on Maria before dumping the groceries on the counter and going back out to take care of the vehicles. That finished, he washed up and emptied out the bags, carefully lining everything up on the counter and then checking the items off against the recipe.

He turned to lean against the island, his gaze sweeping over the cabinets as he tried to remember which one contained the baking pans. He always cooked his frozen pizzas on a sheet of tin foil, but the recipe said he needed a pan, so he had to find one. He knew they had one because Maria had been very specific about what she wanted when she had dragged him through a huge store at the mall that only sold kitchen stuff a while back. He didn't see what the big deal was; in his opinion, one pan was as good as the next as long as it did the job it was supposed to do. But, no, apparently there was a world of difference between dark, light, glass, aluminum, Teflon, and whatever other kinds she had gone on about. Admittedly, he hadn't paid much attention to her while she was rambling on about the importance of quality cooking pans. He had spent most of his time leaning on the cart and watching her, wondering if she was as fiery in bed as she was out of it.

He sighed as he pulled himself out of his thoughts and started to rummage through the cabinets in search of the pizza pan. He frowned when he finally located not one, but two pans. _What the fuck? The recipe just said pizza pan, it didn't say anything about deep dish or regular. How was he supposed to know which one to use if the fuckin' recipe didn't tell him?_ He glared at the ingredients scattered across the countertop as if they held the answer he was searching for.

_Where was that damned pizza crust at?_ He walked over to the refrigerator and pulled the freezer door open, grabbing the square box and jerking it out. He scanned over the colorful packaging, searching for any indication of whether or not it was regular or deep dish. _Nothing. Fuck. Well, it would be safer to use the deep dish pan then, _he decided._ At least that way, if it was deep dish it would be contained by the high sides, and if it wasn't… well, it couldn't hurt, right?_

"Whatever," he muttered, putting the crust away and retrieving the deep dish pan and setting it on the counter. It was too early to start cooking so he put the refrigerated items away and left the rest on the counter before going back to check on Maria again.

She was awake, but she barely moved when he entered the bedroom and sat down on the bed beside her. He didn't know what he was supposed to say or if he should even say anything at all; he wasn't the kind of man who really talked about stuff like this. He looked down when he felt her shift beside him and his eyes followed her hand when it inched closer to him, clenching and unclenching uncertainly.

He slouched down a little further and turned his hand over next to hers, letting her decide whether to take it or not. He could almost feel the emotions warring inside of her as her fingers twitched uncertainly next to his.

Maria stared at his big hand, her eyes tracing over it as she fought with her conscience. _He wasn't her Michael, she knew that with every fiber of her being, so was it wrong to pretend that he was hers just for a few minutes? It couldn't be, right?_ Her hand moved, closing the distance between them and sliding her fingers through his and her heart clenched in her chest when he closed his hand around hers loosely. Tears welled up in her eyes and spilled over, running down her cheeks to drip off of her chin when she felt his flesh against hers. _It was no use; she couldn't even pretend._ Sure, there were plenty of similarities between the two men, but there was just no way to fool her heart into believing that he was her Michael, not even for a short while.

Michael frowned when she pulled her hand free and rolled over to face the wall. He had seen the tears on her face and he could see her body shaking under the covers. _Was this some sort of delayed reaction from the night before?_ he wondered.

"You want me to bring you somethin' to drink?" he asked gruffly.

"No." Her voice was barely a whisper.

"Okay." His hand hovered over her trembling shoulder, uncertain as to whether he should touch her or not. He patted her shoulder awkwardly and leaned over her to motion at the cell phone on the nightstand. "I'm gonna work in the shop for a while; just call me if you need anything." He waited until she nodded before he stood up and left the room to go in search of something to occupy his time.

He puttered around in the shop for a while but he couldn't keep his mind focused on anything for very long. Less than an hour passed before he found himself back in her bedroom, but this time he settled in the rocking chair in the corner. She was asleep again, curled up tightly and clutching the covers to her chest.

He leaned forward, elbows braced on his knees as he studied her ravaged features for several minutes. He stood and retrieved the framed photograph from the nightstand, returning to his seat and slouching down. He stretched his legs out and crossed them at the ankles as he stared at the picture in his hand.

_What was it with her and his counterpart from that other universe?_ He chewed on his thumbnail as he tipped his head to the left. He had dismissed their relationship without a second thought but he had witnessed her emotional break the night before and there had been nothing contrived about it. _Hell, he had seen women lose lovers and husbands after fifteen or twenty years together who hadn't reacted as strongly as she had reacted to losing a guy she had only been with for four years._

She was trapped here in a reality that wasn't her own, without her friends or her family, because she believed that it was going to help her bring her lover back. _It wasn't just a teenage thing,_ he thought as he stared down at the picture. _But, it wasn't just a sexual thing either, though it was obvious that they had been involved to that degree. No, the way the kid held her spoke of something deeper than the raging hormones of a horny eighteen-year-old boy._ What he had seen the night before had been complete and utter devastation; for her to suffer such a shattering and emotionally-draining episode there had to be something… _more_ between them. Something that even he in all of his cynicism was beginning to believe might actually be… love.

_Fuck!_ he thought when realization hit him between the eyes with the force of a jackhammer. _If this kid, this other version of him, was capable of loving this Maria girl with such depth and intensity… did that mean the same capability existed within him?_

Now that was a scary prospect. And one he didn't wish to examine any further. He placed the photograph back on the nightstand and checked to make sure Maria was still asleep before he left to go get dinner started.

In the kitchen he turned the stereo on and turned the volume up a little before he opened the cookbook up to the page he needed and laid it on the counter. He turned the oven on to the indicated temperature and greased the pan before going to get the crust. He tossed the box on the counter before grabbing a beer out of the refrigerator along with all of the ingredients he had put away earlier.

After brushing olive oil on both sides of the crust he put it in the pan and squished it around to stretch it so that it was touching on all sides. Next came the tomato sauce, spread over the crust with just a little more than the recipe called for because it didn't look like enough to him. The barbecue sauce was optional, but he decided to use it since it was good on just about everything anyway. He laid the mozzarella cheese on thick because there was no such thing as too much cheese on a pizza. The same rule applied to onions and since he saw no possibility of kissing Maria in the near future, he piled them on. Bacon was optional and he decided that didn't sound as interesting as the other toppings so he vetoed it. He strained the pineapple chunks, draining as much of the juice as possible before spreading them over the pizza. Next, he added a layer of cubed ham followed by more mozzarella cheese and lastly he doused the whole thing with Tabasco sauce.

Finished putting it all together he stood back and eyed his handiwork, pleased that it actually looked like a pizza. Now all he had to do was put it in the oven, wait twenty minutes, and voila! Dinner would be ready. He paused as he reached for the pan, wondering if he should go make sure Maria was awake before he put it in. _Yeah, he should probably do that,_ he decided.

He washed his hands and dried them on a dishtowel, tossing it on the counter as he walked out of the room. He entered Maria's bedroom and walked around the bed, crouching down and meeting her green gaze directly. "Hey, you're awake," he said in a gentle tone. _Was that __**his**__ voice?!_ "You feelin' any better?"

Maria watched him as he waited for her to respond, his demeanor undemanding and almost… kind. "A little, I guess," she admitted, her voice still a little hoarse.

"You think you'll feel up to eatin' here in a little while?"

She shook her head. "Don't feel like cooking, sorry."

"No, you ain't gotta cook; I've got it covered. I just didn't wanna put it in the oven until you felt like sittin' up and eatin'."

_He didn't wanna put it in the oven,_ she thought. _He must've gone into town and gotten something that he could cook. Well, he had obviously made an effort, so it would be rude to not eat whatever frozen delight he had purchased._ "I need to wash up a little first," she said, motioning to her tear-stained face.

Michael nodded. "Half an hour be enough time?" He shrugged. "I can wait if you need more than that."

"No, that's fine."

"Okay, I'll bring it in here when it's ready, and we can watch a movie… your choice."

Maria wiped away fresh tears after he backed out of the room. She wasn't sure if it would be better or worse to deal with him being this nice. She sighed as she threw the covers back and sat up, swinging her legs over the side of the bed. It was getting harder to ignore him as it was, if he started being nice it was going to make it downright impossible.


	37. Chapter 37

**Part 36**

It wasn't until she stepped into the bathroom and examined her reflection in the mirror that she realized she was wearing one of his tee shirts and nothing else. She glanced around the room and images from the night before came rushing back as heat flooded her cheeks. He had found her and brought her home, but he hadn't just put her to bed. Her eyes swung to the shower and fresh tears filled her eyes as she remembered the gentle and awkward way he had taken care of her. Not a single crass remark, no biting sarcasm, no anger in his words, nothing rough about his hands as he had cared for her, and now he had even made dinner. Something from the frozen food section, no doubt, but the fact that he had made the gesture spoke volumes.

She washed her face and ran the brush through her hair but decided against changing into something else. The tee shirt was too big, but it was soft from years of wear and it was perfect for lounging around in bed. When she was finished she went back to her bedroom and crawled into bed, stacking the pillows up against the headboard and making herself comfortable under the blanket. She was reaching for the remote when she noticed the note on the nightstand. _He wasn't supposed to be this thoughtful,_ she thought, placing the note between the lamp and the alarm clock after reading it.

"Anything worth watchin' on TV?" Michael asked, entering the room with the bed tray. He leaned down to settle it over her lap, glancing over his shoulder to see what was on the screen.

"Old comedies, but…"

"Not really in the mood," he guessed. "Right. Well, I can go grab a movie." As soon as she rattled off a title he hurried from the room to retrieve it.

Maria looked down at the two plates on the tray and her eyebrows lifted as she inhaled the savory aroma of the pizza. Hawaiian, if she wasn't mistaken. Deep dish, piled high with all of the good toppings, and she could smell the barbecue sauce hidden beneath the toppings. She tipped her head to one side, studying the cheese that was practically dripping off of the thick crust. Frozen pizzas didn't look or smell that good… which meant that he had actually _made_ it himself. She glanced up when he came back with the movie, then watched him load it into the player as she took her first bite.

"Oh my God!" she exclaimed around a mouthful of the pizza. It was perfect; the flavors blended together to create a flavorful sensation, the cheese was piled on the way she liked it, and the onions had been generously added on. "Michael, I had no idea you could cook like this! Why didn't you tell me you're such a good cook?"

His expression was a mixture of confusion and pride as he settled down next to her and grabbed his own plate. "I'm not," he mumbled around his first bite. "Fuck, that is good, isn't it?"

He chewed in silence, wondering about his sudden ability to do things he couldn't remember ever being able to do. Last night, some connection or something had let him know something was wrong with her and then it had led him to her location, and today, he was cooking like he knew what he was doing. Something was happening to him, something he didn't understand, maybe even something alien, and it was connected to her. So, maybe this thing that had been happening to him wasn't some illness, maybe he wasn't sick at all.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

They watched the movie in companionable silence and when it was over Michael carried the bed tray and dishes back to the kitchen, rinsing them off and stacking them in the dishwasher before grabbing a couple of beers from the refrigerator and going back to her bedroom.

He handed one of the chilled bottles to Maria and made himself comfortable next to her. He glanced at the TV, noticing that she had left it on and muted the sound. He took a drink from his bottle as he considered his thoughts from earlier.

"Maria?"

"Um-hmm."

"What was your connection with him like?" he asked.

Maria took a drink from her own bottle and contemplated her answer as she tried to hide her surprise. He had eased off of the derogatory comments in regards to her relationship with her Michael, but it was the first time he had asked about it with such a lack of animosity.

"It was intense," she said finally and smiled. "But, then again, everything about Michael was intense."

"So, could you guys, I don't know… _feel_ each other when you were apart?"

"Yeah, there's a definite connection that exists between humans and their hybrids. I mean, Liz could feel Max from the other side of the country - "

"When he died or whatever, right?" She had mentioned something about that before when they had been talking about her past, her friends, and her experiences with the hybrids in her universe. "What if Michael was hurt or somethin'? Could you feel it?"

Maria's expression turned sad as she thought about the day her Michael had died. "More than I wanted to sometimes. We could feel each other whether things were good or bad, but the more intense the situation, the more intense that feeling would get. At times it would even manifest itself physically."

Michael's right hand tightened on the bottle he was holding balanced on his thigh. "How is that possible?"

"We just figured that it happened because of our connection to each other. Michael and I had it and so do Max and Liz."

"So, it's definitely alien related," he mused.

Maria turned her head to look at him, watching him closely and wondering why he was suddenly so interested in Michael and her. _What was really going on in his mind? He was usually easy to read; his thoughts generally revolved around sex, food, motorcycles, and work. But here, there actually seemed to be something deeper behind his questions, it was almost as if something was bothering him._ "Why all the questions? Have you ever felt that for anyone?"

"No," he answered quickly, "you were sayin' somethin' about it in your sleep last night. Besides, how do you think I'd ever have that kinda connection with anyone if I don't get tied down by relationships?"

_Right. One-night stands were just a part of his way of life; it was kind of hard to forget that. So, what was the point of these questions that seemed to be so… out of the blue? _"Just because you don't let yourself get that involved physically doesn't mean that you've never experienced that - "

"Physically is the _only_ way I get involved, Maria; don't try to romanticize my interest in the opposite sex." Her explanation about the connection shared between hybrids and their human mates was unsettling and he didn't want to talk about it any longer. "Well, you need to get some rest so I think I'm gonna go to bed."

Maria frowned when he rolled off of the bed and got to his feet. It was the first time that he had gone to sleep in his own room since the night after he had come home wounded. She hadn't argued with him when he had made himself at home in her bed every night since because it had been nice to not be alone in the big bed, to feel his big body close by and let her mind fool itself for a few hours each night that she wasn't completely alone.

She sighed as she slipped further down in bed and pulled the covers up to her chin. She stared at the ceiling for several minutes before she rolled over onto her side and picked up the remote control, aiming it at the TV and scanning through the channels.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Michael threw himself down on his bed and stared at the ceiling as he thought about what Maria had been saying. He steered clear of those thoughts before long and focused instead on what it meant to be a hybrid. He hadn't given it much thought before, but he suddenly realized that he had never really asked for clarification about what that meant. _Obviously it implied that he was only half alien,_ he thought as he held his hands up and stared at them, _but what did that mean about the other half? The human half?_

He shifted onto his side and tried in vain to find a comfortable position. "This's ridiculous," he muttered as he finally admitted defeat and sat up again. He had spent a fortune on his bed and he couldn't remember it ever being so uncomfortable. _Maybe it was time to invest in a new mattress._

_Or maybe you've gotten used to Maria sleeping next to you,_ his conscience whispered. He rejected that thought outright; it implied that he was becoming dependent on her and nothing could be further from the truth. _No, obviously she just had a more comfortable mattress_. He nodded to himself. _Yeah, that was an acceptable reason and the best thing was that it made sense._

His thoughts shifted back to their original topic and the fingers of his right hand drummed against the mattress. _Half human… how did that happen? There had to be an explanation, right? He wasn't from Earth so how was it that he was half human? How had his race, his people, gotten their hands on the raw materials needed to create a cloned human body?_

He glanced at the door to his room and debated whether to go and wake Maria up so she could explain it to him. He knew she needed her rest because she was still exhausted from the night before, but after a few minutes he got to his feet. He couldn't wait until the next day; if he didn't get answers tonight he was never gonna be able to sleep.

Maria looked up when he suddenly appeared in her doorway and she tried not to think about the feeling of relief that washed over her when she saw him. She couldn't reconcile her feelings where he was concerned; while he wasn't her Michael she was beginning to get comfortable with him and she missed him when he wasn't around. He had been sleeping in her bed with her for the past few nights and she had gotten used to his presence. It was making it harder to sleep now that he wasn't there, but she wasn't about to admit that aloud.

The more time she spent with him, especially since he was beginning to warm up to her and treat her nicely, the more conflicted she was feeling. On the one hand, it was nice to spend time with him and not feel constantly on edge, just waiting for the next cruel thing to come out of his mouth. But, on the other hand, she felt as if she was being disloyal to her Michael and the guilt was beginning to creep in.

Michael folded his arms over his chest as he leaned against the doorframe, watching her as she pushed herself up into a sitting position. "You're still awake," he observed, but it came out sounding more like a question.

"Just haven't been able to fall asleep yet." She motioned for him to come in and ignored the feeling of calm that settled over her when he sat on the bed next to her. "What's on your mind?"

"I wanna know more about my… I don't even know what to call it… human donor, maybe? I'm half human, right? How did that happen?"

"Your human donor's name is Charles Dupree."

He listened as Maria went on to explain about Dupree's abductions, his contribution to Michael's existence, and how she and her Michael had been involved in saving the man's granddaughter. He frowned when she explained that they hadn't been able to meet the man because he was dead in her universe.

"What're you thinking?" she asked when his expression turned contemplative.

"He could be alive here though, right? You said yourself that not everything was the same between your universe and mine."

Maria thought about that for a minute. "Y'know, I hadn't really considered that, but it is possible." She scrambled to get out of bed and follow him when he jumped up and left the room. "Michael, what're you doing?" she asked when she found him in the living room, sitting behind the desk in the corner.

He pointed at the screen as he logged into some database that she had never seen or heard of before. "Chances are good that if this guy's still alive I'll be able to find him usin' this database." He drummed the fingers of his left hand on the surface of the desk while his right hand was busy clicking on the appropriate selections to get him to the search engine. "Okay, spell his last name for me."

It was the first time Maria had seen him use the computer and she was surprised by the ease with which he maneuvered around the sites. She watched him as he typed, surprised when his fingers flew over the keyboard; she had expected the stuttered peck-peck-peck that her Michael had been limited to.

"What kind of database is this?" she asked, sitting on the corner of the desk. She placed her left hand on the surface and used it to brace her weight when she leaned on it.

"It's used to track anyone of interest." He shrugged. "You said this guy claimed he was abducted multiple times, right? So, he probably drew some attention to himself with all of his crazy talk."

"You have access to a database like that?"

"Uh-huh." Michael shook his head when the search came back without any hits. "Okay, he's not in Tucson; any suggestions that'll help narrow it down?"

"No, in my universe that's where he was."

"Well, we'll just have to plug his name in and let the database run the search. Dependin' on how far it has to search it could run all night, so if you wanna go to bed…"

"You wanna watch a movie? I'm not really tired."

Michael brightened up at that idea. "Popcorn?"

Maria rolled her eyes. "You pick a movie out and get it ready; I'll go make the popcorn."


	38. Chapter 38

**Part 37**

It wasn't until several days later that the database search paid off and Michael stared at it in disbelief. Maria was at work so he couldn't share the information with her, but he printed off everything the database had gathered and grabbed his keys as he walked through the kitchen on his way to the garage.

He didn't recognize or question his decision to take the information to her; he just knew he couldn't wait another six hours for her to get home. The drive that normally took an hour was made in less time and before he realized it he was pulling into the parking lot at the bar. He relinquished his weapons at the door, growling at Raphael when he gave him his locker number and put his gear away for safekeeping.

He made a quick visual sweep of the interior and located Maria without any trouble; she was serving the group he normally hung around with when he came to the bar. He frowned when he noticed that Novak had joined them and he was grinning at Maria and saying something that she only shook her head at before moving on. He moved to the bar to order a beer while he waited for Maria to make her way back from her customers and he looked up when he felt someone settle on the stool next to his.

Stone was leaning on the counter with a teasing grin on her face as she watched him. "I just passed your kill total," she bragged as she downed the shot of whiskey she held in her right hand.

He shook his head as the woman behind the bar placed his beer on the counter in front of him. "Not possible; you were one behind me. So, if you had a kill shot on your last assignment then you only tied with me."

She smirked. "I took out two targets and that puts me one ahead of you."

"Thirty-one confirmed kills?" He took a long drink from his bottle as he thought about that. "Hope you're not plannin' to hold onto that for very long." He turned his head to follow Stone's predatory gaze when she locked onto something across the room and he wasn't surprised to see that she had zeroed in on the man talking to Gabriel.

"Who is that?"

"Detective Lawson," Maria answered, overhearing the question as she stepped back behind the counter. "He came by to see if anyone had heard anything about some break-ins in the neighborhood."

"Well, there you go," Michael said, nudging Stone's shoulder, "he's a cop, you're an agent, you've both got handcuffs… go for it."

Maria could've happily gagged when Stone just smiled at Michael and ruffled his hair affectionately before sliding off of the stool and making her way across the room. She shoved the jealousy aside; she was no longer denying it, she just didn't want to deal with it. "What're you doing here?"

He took another drink from his bottle and leaned forward over the bar. "I found Dupree."

Maria froze, staring at him in disbelief. "Wait, you found him… he's alive?"

"Alive, allegedly crazy, and livin' all alone outside of San Angelo, Texas." He pulled the folded papers out of the inside pocket of his leather jacket and laid them on the counter for her to look at.

Maria glanced through the papers before looking at him. "What're you gonna do now?"

"Go see him and get some answers."

"By yourself?"

_This was the tricky part,_ Michael thought. _He wasn't prepared to just ask her if she wanted to go with him because then she'd think he wanted her to go and that was the last thing he needed her to think._ "Why? You don't think that's a good idea?"

"Well, what're you gonna say to him? You don't know how he feels about… _things,_ or how receptive he's gonna be to meeting you." She wiped the counter down and shrugged one shoulder, trying to act nonchalant. "I'm just saying that it might be good to get an idea of his actual state of mind before you go barging in there."

"So, you're sayin' you wanna invite yourself along for my trip?" he asked, frowning. _That's right, play it cool and make it sound like you're annoyed by the prospect of her presence on your trip._ He scratched his chin as he waited for her to speak, acting like he was considering it.

"Why not? I'd like to meet him too, y'know, and I can help you get in to see him."

"How?"

"I can go out to his place, pretend I'm there doing research into alien abductees or something, and that way we'll be able to tell if he's gonna be willing to even listen to what you have to say."

Michael folded the papers over when she handed them back to him, putting them in his pocket and considering what she was saying. "Hmmm, I hadn't really thought about it like that." _A complete and utter lie, but she didn't need to know that._ "So, you'd just go in and do a little recon… I guess that'd be okay." He nodded. "We can fly out there and then I thought maybe we could rent a motorcycle, drive to Santa Fe, visit with Indigo, and then see if I can con him into bringin' us back to L.A. How's that sound?"

Maria didn't comment on his slip of the tongue, hiding her smile when she realized that he wanted her to go but didn't want her to think it was his idea. "Sounds good. I'm off the next three days, but I can talk to Gabriel after closing if you think it's gonna take any longer than that."

"Nah, we should only be gone a couple days at the most." He finished his beer and stood up. "Okay, well, I'm gonna head home then and make flight reservations for first thing in the mornin'."

Maria shook her head and smiled as she watched him walk out of the bar, stopping near the entrance to talk to Gabriel first. She wondered if the feeling of anticipation had to do with the trip itself, or if it was because she would be with Michael.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

Maria followed Michael to the elevator at the hotel in San Angelo, too tired to even bother asking if he had gotten one room or two. As soon as she had gotten home he had insisted that she pack and get ready to go so they could get to the airport in plenty of time for their flight.

They stepped out on the second floor and she leaned against the wall when he stopped at one of the doors and pulled the key card out of his shirt pocket. He swiped the card, reached inside to turn the lights on, and entered the room to look around for anything that seemed out of place. Once he was satisfied that everything was in order he dropped the key card on the dresser and turned to look at Maria. "I've got the room next door, so if you need anything…" He shrugged and moved past her and back out into the hallway, pulling the door closed behind him.

Maria was too exhausted to even be surprised by his unexpected behavior as she sat down on the bed, kicking her shoes off and crawling under the blankets. She was asleep before she had time to formulate a single thought.

When she awoke several hours later it was early afternoon and she was hungry. _Shower first,_ she thought as she rolled over and stretched. She turned the television on to a local news station to check the weather while she got her things together. After a nice long, hot shower she dressed in a comfortable pair of jeans and a colorful blouse, and then went to knock on Michael's door.

He answered the door wearing a pair of cargo pants, the snap undone and causing them to hang low on his hips. The towel in his right hand and the droplets of water dripping from the ends of his wet hair indicated that he had just gotten out of the shower. "I'll be finished in a few minutes," he said as he waved her inside and closed the door behind her before walking back to the bathroom.

Maria moved to the table in the corner, looking over the equipment stretched out across the polished surface. "What's all this?" she asked.

"Wiring equipment," he called, raising his voice to be heard.

"You're wiring something?"

"Yeah, you."

She jumped when he spoke up from right behind her and as she turned to face him she blamed her rapid heartbeat on his unexpected presence. "What're you talking about?"

"I mean you're not goin' in there unless I know what's goin' on at all times, so you're gonna wear a wire."

"Michael, he's like eighty-some years old, what do you think he's gonna do?"

"The point of goin' in prepared is to circumvent anything that he might do; if he's really who you say he is and he was actually abducted by aliens, we have no idea what he's capable of." His hands rested on his hips as he stared at her, trying to read her expression and decide if she was gonna give him a hard time. "You wear the wire or you don't go in."

"What?" Maria shook herself. She was having a difficult time concentrating with him standing so close. _Bare-chested, fresh out of the shower… he looked and smelled good enough to eat!_

Michael reached around her, intentionally crowding her and bringing his body right up against hers. He wasn't blind to the look in her eyes; his entire body had reacted to that look, and he was more than willing to postpone meeting some old crazy guy if it meant they were finally gonna set the sheets on fire.

Maria cleared her throat and squeezed her eyes shut when he practically plastered the front of his body to hers as he reached for something on the table behind her. _God, he was gonna kill her…_ she could feel every hard inch of him pressed against her, his big body as hot as a branding iron right out of the fire, and it was taking everything she had to keep her hands at her sides.

"Don't you have something smaller?" she rasped when he finally moved back, even though it wasn't enough to create space between them.

"Not a chance," he growled, purposefully misunderstanding and making it a point to make sure she could feel his erection.

"I'm talking about your wiring equipment, you egotistical swine," she snapped, annoyed that her body was heating up in response to his proximity.

"Oh, good, we've already reached the _no_ part of the day." He gathered all of his equipment up and carried it over to the bed, carefully placing it where he could reach everything and motioning for her to join him.

Maria moved, but stopped with more than two feet still between them, wary of being so close to him after reacting so strongly to him just minutes earlier.

"You can get closer; I might bite, but I've had all my shots." He reached out and snagged one of her belt loops and pulled her to stand between his knees.

"I really don't think all of this is necessary." Maria heard the breathless quality in her voice and she hated herself for it. _Bastard could get under her skin in less than a second!_

"It is if you're plannin' to go into this guy's territory without me at your back. Now," he made a downward motion with his right hand, "unbutton your shirt."

"Excuse me?"

Michael smiled at her incredulous tone. _He was making progress with her, he could see it. She was affected to the point of not seeing reason and taking every word he said as a sexual advance. Yep, her mind was definitely going in the right direction as far as he was concerned. _"It's gonna look kinda obvious if the wires are on the outside of your clothes." He huffed in irritation. "Look, it's not like I haven't seen it before and you already said no. What the fuck do you think I'm gonna do? Force myself on you?"

Maria shook her head and reached up to unbutton her blouse. It wasn't so much a fear of him as it was a fear of her response to him. She looked down to watch him as he straightened out the wires he intended to use and she forced herself to bring her breathing under control.

Michael kept his gaze focused on the wires he was busy connecting. He could've easily used a wire in the form of a pin she could put on her shirt but unlike her Michael he wasn't a saint and he had no problem lying to see some skin. He could feel the nervous energy running through her body where his knees were pressed against her legs, holding her in place.

He lifted his head and swallowed hard as his gaze slid over the bare skin of her midriff and traveled up over her lace-covered breasts. _Why was he doing this again?_ he asked himself as his heartbeat sped up. He smirked when his fingertips brushed against her skin and she tried to jump back, but his grip on her legs prevented her from moving. _That's right, he was proving a point… that she wanted him just as much as he wanted her._

"Don't you dare," Maria warned when he slid two fingers beneath the front clasp that held her bra together.

"Relax, princess, I need to run the wire under your bra." He held the clasp away from her skin and slid the wire beneath it before reaching up to hold it in place so he could slide his fingers free of her bra. He turned to grab a small roll of medical tape off of the bed and tore a strip off, pressing it over the wire where it rested between her breasts. The backs of his fingers brushed against her breasts intentionally before moving down to secure the wire against her body in several more places.

He took the loose end of the wire that was dangling from the last piece of tape he had placed against her skin at her waist and hooked it into a small square, black box. He made a couple of adjustments to it and double checked the connections before his hands settled at her hips.

"I think you're getting way too much enjoyment out of this," she sniped.

"Well, my dick's not complainin'," he said in an agreeable tone as he stood and wrapped his arms around her.

"What the hell are you doing now?"

He grinned, knowing she couldn't see his expression. "Gotta get your box wired."

Maria groaned, blaming it on his choice of words and not the fact that the only thing between them and full skin-on-skin contact above the waist was her bra. She squeezed her eyes shut when his thumbs slid into her waistband and she fisted her own hands to keep from grabbing onto him.

Michael had to bite his bottom lip when his thumbs brushed against her skin and he quickly finished attaching the box that carried the signal for the audio to her waistband and secured it to her belt loop as additional security. His hands were fisted right over her back pockets and he briefly toyed with the idea of behaving, but temptation won out and he uncurled his fingers and slid his hands down, splaying them over her ass. "Y'know, we could always go see the old guy later," he murmured suggestively.

"This was just a cheap tactic to cop a feel," she snarled, finally pulling herself together and shoving him away. "Your behavior is disgusting and I can't believe that after all the time that we've spent together your only interest is pawing me like some… some…"

"Look, it's not a one-way street, baby; you wanna cop a feel…" He took a step back and held his arms open wide, "go for it. Matter of fact, give me a couple of seconds strip down and then you can really feel it all."

"Would you just get ready so we can go?"

Michael had the audacity to smirk at her. "You wanna know why you're pissed? You're pissed because you _want_ me to nail you through the mattress and you're getting tired of always sayin' no."

"I'm pissed because you refuse to respect my feelings, Michael! God, why can't you just be like you've been for the past week? Why do you have to go and turn every little thing into something sexual? Do you honestly think it's easy for me to be around you and not think about what it would be like to just take what you've offered? I'm only human, Michael, and you're not stupid; you have to know what it does to me when you act like this." She ran her hands through her hair as she paced around the room, agitated by his behavior. "You look like my Michael, sometimes you talk like my Michael, and you feel like my Michael, but you'll never be him and you'll never replace him! I don't care what the Granolith thinks, you're not him and you're never gonna be able to replace him!"

"I don't give a fuck about replacin' him." He grabbed a shirt out of the small closet in the dressing area and pulled it on over his head. "You wanna spend the rest of your life alone and not getting laid, go right ahead." He paused in front of her and stared down at her. "You think this is what he would've wanted for you? Hate me all you want, Maria, but you're not the one who died." He didn't even try to stop her open palm from cracking against the side of his face this time.

"He wouldn't have wanted me to fuck you just because you look like him and it'd be convenient all the way around." She braced her fisted hands on her hips and glared at him, taking a step backwards when he advanced on her. "Don't touch me!"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, would you quit actin' like some blushin' virgin for five seconds?" he snapped as he reached out to button her shirt up. "Your argument would be a lot more convincin' if your breasts weren't right there, in my face! It doesn't really matter how much you fight it, Maria; you're gonna end up in my bed, screamin' my name…" He leaned in until he was so close that it was almost impossible to focus on his dark, angry eyes. "_My_ name," he snarled.

Maria glared at him, silently telling him to get away from her. "Let's go talk to Dupree; I'm not interested in anymore of your opinions."

"Whatever." He grabbed his equipment and his key card and followed her out of the room.


	39. Chapter 39

**Part 38**

Maria stared at the mansion that stood several hundred yards back from the heavy wrought iron gate at the property's entrance. It seemed out of place amid the miles of empty space that surrounded it. She walked over to the brick columns on the left side and pressed the call button on the metal box built into it.

The speaker crackled to life after she pressed the button for the third time and an angry voice grated out, "Go away. I'm not interested in buyin' anything."

"No, Mr. Dupree, I'm not here to sell anything."

"What do you want?"

Maria rolled her eyes. _Of course, Michael's predecessor would be just as rude as he was!_ "I'd like to interview you for an article I'm writing."

"Why?"

"Mr. Dupree, if you would just agree to talk to me, I think I could clarify a little better face to face - "

"Are you alone?"

Maria glanced up at the surveillance cameras mounted above the brick columns and wondered why the old man was asking questions like that when the answer was apparent. "I'm standing here by myself, Mr. Dupree." Her gaze swung to the gate when she heard a click and the locking mechanism released in grudging invitation.

He made a sound of extreme impatience. "Well, hurry up then, girl! I don't have all day!" he huffed in annoyance.

"Yeah," Maria muttered as she trekked up to the house, "this guy's definitely your relative."

From his place hidden out of sight of the surveillance cameras, Michael laughed at the old man's tone. _It was quite possible that she was right and the cranky old curmudgeon was related to him._

The large oak door was pulled open as she stepped up on the wide porch and she paused with one foot still on the top step as her gaze landed on Charles Dupree. He was in his mid-eighties, his hair was white but he wore it long so that it brushed over his collar, his tall frame was stooped with age, and his weight was balanced carefully on the cane he gripped in his right hand. But, the most striking thing about him was his eyes; deep, dark brown, and burning with intelligence and suspicion as he studied her. _Michael's eyes,_ she realized, shaking herself out of her shock. The resemblance between them was uncanny, but it was his eyes that confirmed his relationship to Michael; she had never seen that much intensity in anyone else's eyes.

"Well? Are you just gonna stand there all day?" he snapped. "I'm not getting any younger the longer we stand here."

Maria stepped into the stuffy interior of the large foyer, waiting for him to close the door and lead the way into the house. She followed him into a sitting room, looking around in curiosity as he carefully made his way over to the chair that he clearly favored. The room was lit by lamplight, the natural sunlight blocked by the heavy curtains pulled tightly over the large windows.

"What paper do you work for?" he demanded, not bothering with pleasantries.

"I'm not actually affiliated with any newspapers, Mr. Dupree. I'm gathering information for - " She froze when he suddenly sat up straighter and his gaze turned predatory.

"You're with _them_, aren't you?"

Michael tensed at the man's words but he forced himself to sit still despite the fact that his instincts were screaming at him to go in after Maria. He would wait to see how she played it.

"What?"

"Why don't you tell me why you're really here," he suggested, his voice hard.

She should've known that he wouldn't just buy the story and go along with things the way she had planned. "Your name came up in some research I've been doing on alien abductees and I was hoping to ask you some questions."

He relaxed slightly and eased back into his chair, his thumb constantly rubbing over his right eye the only indication that he wasn't as unaffected as he wanted her to believe. "Why me? There are plenty of other documented abductees, so why would you single me out?"

"Who says I singled you out?" she countered. "I didn't say you were the only one I was going to interview."

"You're talkin' in circles, girl."

Maria sighed. "Why were you abducted? Do you have any idea why you would've been chosen?"

"Because that's the kind of luck that I have. How the hell should I know why they picked me to abduct for the purpose of experimentation?"

"Do you know why they did what they did to you?" She sat on the edge of the couch and watched him as he shifted his weight to his left side.

"Because aliens are sadistic creatures without morals and they don't have a single shred of humanity in their warped beings. What other reason would there be to abduct people, do tests on them, return them to their homes, and after time passes, take them and do it all over again?" He shook his head. "They're cruel and their methods of experimentation fall under the category of torture; they treat humans like lab rats, taking us only to return us to our homes until they're ready to poke and prod for more experiments. You have no idea what it's like to constantly straddle the line between reason and insanity, knowing that at any moment you could spiral out of control and begin the descent into total madness."

Michael frowned at the old man's agitated tone; Dupree was getting worked up and he didn't like the animosity in his tone. Listening to him, it sounded like part of his mind had already slipped into madness and he was simply struggling to hold onto some semblance of sanity with what was left.

"Mr. Dupree, have you ever considered that something good could have come from all that you went through? I'm not condoning what they did, I'm not saying it was right at all, but have you ever wondered if - "

"How could anything good have come from bein' tortured and abused?"

"What if there was someone who could prove to you that all of your suffering wasn't for nothing?"

"That's not possible," he denied, shaking his head.

"But, what if there was?" She cursed under her breath when she heard the pounding on the front door and Dupree looked at her suspiciously.

"You're one of them," he accused angrily.

"No, Mr. Dupree, listen to me, please." She felt herself stop breathing when he reached into the drawer built into the table next to him and withdrew a gun. He aimed it at her as he stood with the aid of the cane and moved around the room slowly, moving towards the front door. He hadn't reached the entrance to the room when Michael suddenly appeared there, his own weapon in hand and aimed at the old man. "I didn't give you the signal," she snapped, annoyed by the turn of events. _This was not the way this was supposed to go down at all!_

"If I had waited for you it would've been too late." He leaned forward and wrapped his hand around Maria's upper arm when she moved to stand between him and Dupree. "You don't stand between two guys with guns; it's not smart."

"Put your gun away," she hissed, placing her hand over his and pushing his hand down, effectively lowering the weapon. She ignored Michael's protests and moved to stand in front of the old man, meeting his gaze directly as she waited for him to focus on her. "Mr. Dupree… Charles… Michael may be many things, but he's not a threat to you despite the fact that he broke into your home and ran in here waving a gun around. He's the proof that I was talking about," she said gently.

Michael held his breath as he watched her extend her hand in the old man's direction, her fingers curling around the gun and exerting gentle pressure that slowly caused him to lower the weapon. "We wanted to talk to you, but we were afraid that seeing Michael without being prepared might be too much of a shock." She shook her head. "He wasn't supposed to come barging in here like this - "

"I thought you were in danger," Michael growled. "I was just watchin' out for you."

Charles ignored the younger man and focused his attention on the young woman urging him to lower his weapon and listen to what she had to say. "Do you often find yourself in situations where subterfuge and heavy-handed tactics need to be employed?"

"It happens on occasion," Maria admitted with a small smile. "And usually it's with him."

The old man chuckled quietly at her answer. "Somehow I have a feelin' that you enjoy getting yourself into these situations."

Michael frowned when Dupree gave just the slightest hint of a smile as he relinquished the weapon to Maria. _Was the old bastard flirting with her?! What was it about her that caused this weird attraction between every incarnation of himself and her?_ "Are we finished here?" he demanded, annoyed by the old man's behavior.

Charles Dupree took several steps forward as he moved around Maria, approaching Michael with a steady gait. He paused less than a foot away, his dark eyes scanning over the younger man as he took in the unbelievable similarities. _The kid could be his twin; he looked just like he had when he was much younger. What could possibly account for the similarity?_

"Need your glasses?" Michael snapped, irritated by the way the man was studying him.

"Don't need glasses to see what's right in front of my face, you smart-assed little bastard. I can see the resemblance and it sure as hell isn't natural. I don't know why you're here, but if it's to feed me some bullshit story about how you're my illegitimate son or some long-lost grandson so you can lay claim to my fortune, you can just save your breath because I'm not interested. I'm not stupid, insane, or suffering from any loss of mental capacity; I remember my past quite well and there are no children in my past." He shook his head. "And even if there were - which, there aren't," he reiterated, "they sure as hell wouldn't look identical to me when I was your age. You tell me what I wanna know or I swear on every deity known to man that I will shoot you where you stand."

"You can try, old man," Michael taunted.

"Okay, boys," Maria said, stepping between them once again, "let's all calm down here. I realize how difficult it is for either of you to be calm or rational and it is becoming glaringly obvious that your antagonistic, territorial, aggressive nature cannot be solely blamed on alien or human genes, but you both need to back off so we can start this all over from the beginning."

It didn't take as long as she had expected to get them sitting down, Michael on the couch and Charles in his chair, but neither of them had broken eye contact once. They were staring at each other like warriors on a battlefield, sizing each other up as they concluded how much of a threat the other one was.

"I'm still waitin'," Charles reminded them without looking away.

Maria wondered how long they could continue staring at each other before one of them gave in to the need to blink. "You're both too stubborn for your own good," she muttered, shaking her head. "I suppose if I want you two to stop staring at each other I'd have to strip naked - " _Uh-huh, that did it,_ she thought, rolling her eyes when two pairs of identical brown eyes swung across the room to land on her. "Okay, that's a little creepy… although, not completely unexpected. Certainly not from you," she said, shoving Michael's shoulder as she sat down next to him.

"I'm not gonna apologize."

_Of course not,_ Maria thought with an expressive roll of her eyes. _Michael Guerin, apologize? Not even a perfect alignment of the planets could make that happen!_ "Oh, I hope not; it's quite possible the Earth might suddenly stop spinning on its axis if you were to do any such thing."

Michael shrugged, unconcerned with her comment. "I'm not gonna turn down an opportunity to see a naked woman."

"Would you two like for me to leave you alone?"

Maria glanced up at the old man's annoyed question. "Sorry, Charles, your relative here has a tendency to have a one-track mind any time the word naked is mentioned." She waved a hand in response to his glare. "Getting back to the matter at hand, why don't we tell you what we came here to tell you, and then we'll decide where to go from there?"

Charles listened for the next couple of hours as the young woman shared a tale that was unbelievable and shocking, filled with stories of warring alien races, alien devices capable of altering space and time, parallel universes, special government units who existed for the sole purpose of hunting down aliens on Earth, and alien royalty re-created using the genetic material gathered from carefully chosen humans and altered in science labs on a planet called Antar.

His mind was reeling by the time she began to wrap the story up and he settled back in his chair when she fell silent. He didn't know how to respond; there was no point in calling her a liar because the proof was sitting right beside her and there was no denying the younger man's resemblance to him. It was just too much to take in all at once and he sat there staring at them without even realizing it, his mind a tumultuous sea of thoughts.

Michael shifted under the old man's stare, unconsciously staring at the man who had unwillingly contributed to his existence. Even though there were sixty years separating them in age he could see some marked similarities between the old man and himself. _At least he still had all of his hair_, he thought, unwilling to let his mind wander any further.

Beside him Maria was looking between the two men, cataloging their reactions to the story and to each other. She knew Michael and Charles were both struggling to come to terms with the other's existence and what it meant to each of them. Neither of them looked particularly pleased with the culmination of the afternoon's revelations and they had yet to say a civil word to each other.

"Perhaps it would be best if we left now," she said, standing up. "I can imagine that this has most likely been a shock for you and you could probably use some time to process everything we've told you today."

Charles finally shook himself out of his thoughts and reached for his cane, leaning on it heavily as he stood up. "I think that's a splendid idea, Maria." His gaze followed them as the young woman nudged Michael into a standing position and herded him out through the front door.

When Michael stepped down off of the porch and paused, waiting for her to join him, Charles cleared his throat to get her attention.

"Was there something else, Charles?" Maria asked, turning to face him as she ignored the hateful glance Michael shot at the old man.

"Why did you come here and tell me all this?"

"I know what it would've meant to my Michael to meet you in my universe, Charles. I'm hoping that it'll help you and Michael find some sort of… I don't know… acceptance or peace. What they did to you wasn't right by any means despite the fact that they were only doing what they felt was necessary to preserve their future." She shot a quick glance over her shoulder. "But, he's stuck on a planet without answers just like you are and it's not fair to him either."

Charles Dupree analyzed the young woman's words and her attitude. He reluctantly admitted that she seemed to genuinely care for the alien. "You care about him."

Maria was startled by his observation. _Yes, she cared about him. Not the same way she had cared for her Michael, but… oh, hell, not again!_ She tried to come up with the best possible answer as she looked at him. "Of course; he's a major pain in the ass, but we're stuck with each other and, well, even though he's not my Michael…" She shrugged, not sure how to explain it so she didn't elaborate any further.

"If you don't hurry up I'm gonna leave your ass here," Michael yelled as he continued on his way to the wrought iron gate.

Maria pulled a piece of paper out of her pocket and unfolded it so that the hotel letterhead was visible. "This is the hotel we're staying at; I wrote our room numbers down in case you're interested in talking or if you have any questions."


	40. Chapter 40

**Part 39**

Charles stood on his front porch long after they were gone, his expression speculative as he stared into the distance where the sun was setting. He had spent most of his adult life trying to deal with being abducted and experimented on against his will; no one had believed his claims, he had been labeled as insane, he had eventually lost everything that had ever mattered to him, and over time he had found it easier to just hide from the world and everyone in it.

It wasn't until the wind began to blow that he registered the fact that his skin was cold and he turned to make his way back into the house. He moved through the rooms as he made his way to the door off of the kitchen that led down into the basement. He pulled the door open and reached in to flip the light switch before slowly taking the steps one at a time, descending into the area of the house where he had literally spent most of his time up until a few years ago. The agonizing pain of arthritis had started to take its toll on him and as a result he rarely went down into the basement any longer. He snorted as he stepped down onto the floor, pausing to rest his legs for a few moments when the constant, nagging pain in his joints flared up from the trip down the stairs.

The drive to find the answers to his abduction had driven him to the edge of insanity so many times over the years and there were times when he had questioned whether or not he had slipped over that razor-thin edge. He took a deep breath and looked around, taking in the literally hundreds of sketches, photographs, and maps that papered the walls. Everything in the basement reflected his obsession with extraterrestrials and even after several decades of poring over every single clue, every piece of information, every shred of evidence he had been able to locate, he hadn't found a single answer.

He had gotten more information in a few hours that afternoon than he had gotten after a lifetime of searching. He eased down into the chair behind the desk piled high with books and notepads and he looked down at the sheet of paper in his hand. _It seemed impossible that the stories he had heard that afternoon could possibly be valid; what were the chances that what she had told him was true? That Michael Guerin had been essentially cloned from his genetic material… that she had traveled here from some parallel universe after losing her own version of the young man. It couldn't be true, he decided. It was incomprehensible that out of the billions of people on the planet that he would've been chosen to contribute to some alien race's last-ditch effort to save their royals. Why him? Why would he have been chosen for such a project?_

Maria hadn't known why he had been chosen specifically, only that it had something to do with some genetic flaw that he had, some flaw that was rare, but necessary for the hybridization process. She was also adamant that the reason he had been taken had been a matter of survival for the Antarians. Antar… the place where he had been taken, the planet, it had a name. Its people had been on the brink of extinction because of a war that had broken out and he had been chosen to help save the royal lineage, to preserve one of the most important beings within their ranks.

He had spent a lifetime hating the aliens that had taken him, performed excruciating and at times humiliating experiments on him, and now, after decades of hatred and bitterness, he was suddenly faced with an explanation that seemed implausible: the aliens had never meant to harm him. They had needed human DNA in order to recreate someone whose importance to their cause was imperative, whose survival was a determining factor in their fight against a tyrant, and they had needed him to make that happen.

He sighed as he looked around at the things that comprised his entire life. This room held everything that had been left after his obsession had completely taken over. Decades of fruitless searches, millions of dollars wasted, the few people who had meant anything to him tossed by the wayside, and this was his legacy… this was all he had to show for his life.

His hand swept across the surface of the desk, clearing it with a single swipe. Sixty years wasted and he had finally started to accept that it had all been for nothing. Sixty years of insane ramblings, sketches of the beings who had taken him and the faces of others who had been abducted and held in the same place with him, memories and nightmares of tests and procedures that were too horrible to think about but that his mind couldn't shake, the anger and bitterness that had slowly taken over until nothing else remained.

_But, it hadn't all been for nothing,_ he thought. _Michael Guerin existed because of all that he had gone through. Antar and an entire civilization might one day be saved because of what had happened to him._ He looked around at the mess he had made and he sighed raggedly as his gaze landed on the scattered newspaper articles that had fluttered to the ground. _Was it worth it? he wondered. He had thrown his entire life away to pursue the truth and now that he had the truth, he had nothing else._

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Maria followed Michael into the hotel and watched him carefully as they rode up in the elevator. He hadn't said a word since leaving Dupree's house, but it was easy to see that he was agitated. He had brushed off every attempt she had made to talk to him and she could practically feel the maelstrom of emotions warring within him.

"You wanna get something for dinner?" she asked as they stepped out on the second floor and turned to walk to their rooms.

"No." He pulled his key card out of his pocket and slid it into the lock on the door, turning the knob and shoving the door inward when he heard the quiet _snick_ indicating that the lock had released. He slammed the door shut before she had a chance to say another word and she jumped back to avoid being hit in the face.

_Great, now he was gonna be in a bad mood for God only knew how long!_ She went to her own room and decided to take a shower before thinking about what she wanted to do for dinner. She started the water, adjusting the temperature before stripping out of her shirt and looking down at the wire taped to her body.

She shivered as she remembered his hands brushing against her skin, recalling the mixed emotions raging inside of her as he had taken every opportunity to touch her or brush up against her. He wasn't subtle in the least, but she wouldn't expect anything different from him no matter what he was doing. He didn't respect the boundaries she had set, but he always backed off as soon as she told him no; he didn't like being told no but at least in that situation he did listen.  
>She shifted her thoughts away from Michael and his hands and turned her attention to getting ready for her shower.<p>

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Michael alternated between lying in bed and stalking around the room, overwhelmed by thoughts and feelings that he didn't want to deal with. _Why had he come here? Why had he insisted on taking this trip to meet an old man who might or might not be his… his what? Father? Grandfather?_ He had no way of knowing how exactly this man was related to him, but it was kind of hard to ignore the similarities between them. It wasn't like he could pretend that the man had no connection to him; the physical resemblance was there, but there was also some… link, some kind of indefinable feeling of being connected to the old man.

That wasn't what he had been looking for when he had decided to look for Charles Dupree; he had just wanted some answers, he wasn't interested in anything else. _It was all Maria's fault. Her and her damn stories!_ If she hadn't come here and started telling him all this stuff he wouldn't be here now. He wouldn't be tracking down an old, crazy man who obviously didn't want anything to do with him. _This was a complication he didn't need or want,_ he thought as he threw the television remote across the room in a fit of temper.

He ran his hands through his hair as he stood and started pacing again. He didn't want to think about it anymore. Maybe a shower would help. _It couldn't hurt,_ he mused, rolling his stiff shoulders back.

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

After a hot shower Maria dressed and settled down on the bed to look over the menu provided by the hotel. She flipped the page and scanned over the items listed before her gaze settled on the side that listed the selection of steaks the kitchen offered. She knew without even checking that Michael hadn't eaten yet; he was upset by what he had heard and she had a feeling that he was shaken up by coming face to face with his human donor.

But, was he going to admit it? No.

She finished browsing the menu and reached for the phone, placing an order and asking to have it delivered to Michael's room. As soon as she had replaced the receiver she put the menu away and reached up to scrub her hands over her face. He was going to be an ass, she already knew it, but she couldn't in good conscience just let him suffer through it alone.

She waited another twenty minutes before getting up and leaving her room to walk next door and knock on the door to Michael's room. She wasn't surprised when he jerked the door open and glared at her, his dark gaze demanding to know why she was bothering him.

"Put some pants on," she ordered, moving past him and entering his room.

Michael glanced down at the towel he had wrapped around his hips when she had knocked on the door; he had just gotten out of the shower and he was dripping all over the plush carpet. "Did I ask you to come in?" he snarled, slamming the door and turning to face her.

"Not in so many words, no," she answered, dropping down to sit on the couch. She had no doubts that he was going to go out of his way to be a jerk, it was to be expected.

"Not in any words." He jerked the towel off as he stalked back through the room to the dressing area, too irritable to even enjoy the shock value of that move. "I could be busy doin' any one of a million things and your bein' here is - "

"Michael, you're not doing anything but stomping all over the room because you're pissed off and upset about what happened this afternoon." Maria had to force her eyes to stay focused straight ahead, but she didn't bother trying to avoid following his tall, naked body as his reflection crossed the television screen.

"Why don't you go analyze someone else for a change? I'm not in the mood for another lecture about how _your_ Michael would've handled this so much better."

"Y'know, you need to get off of that and just let it go! I'm not gonna keep going over that, especially not right now. Why don't you just talk to me about what's bothering you for once, instead of acting like a child."

"I don't need you to come in here an' tell me how to act," he snapped walking back out into the sitting area wearing a pair of his favored cargo pants and nothing else. "It was a stupid idea to come here and I should have my head examined for listenin' to you in the first place." He was seething inside as he stalked around the room, wishing that he had something to throw.

"Oh, so now this is my fault?" she asked, annoyed that he was turning it around so he didn't have to deal with it.

"Of course it's your fault! It's always your fuckin' fault!"

"No way, buddy." Maria stood and turned to face him, arms crossed over her chest as she watched him pace back and forth. "I'm not the one who decided to look for Charles, I'm not the one who decided to fly to Nowhere, Texas when you located him, and I'm not the one who drove all the way into L.A. to ask someone that - "

"I did not ask you to go," he denied heatedly. "You invited yourself along like you had any right - " He stopped talking when someone knocked on the door and he pulled it open, furiously glaring at the poor man standing on the other side. "What?!"

"Room service," the hotel employee squeaked out.

"I didn't order any fuckin' room - "

"Michael, back off," Maria said, insinuating herself between him and the open door. She placed her right hand against his bare chest, knowing it would provide a momentary distraction. "Please, come in; you can set up over there." She motioned at the table by the windows and the man scurried to finish his task while she kept the rooms' occupant busy.

"I'm not hungry!" Michael snarled.

"You're pissed off, upset, and confused by everything that happened today, and if you don't wanna talk about it, that's fine, but you're gonna sit down and eat." _If nothing else, it would calm him down fractionally._ Maria looked up when the hotel employee finished and rushed back to the door, pausing at the threshold to glance at them.

"I hope you don't think I'm givin' you a fuckin' tip," Michael growled, taking a step closer to the nervous man. He backed off when Maria's nails lightly scratched down the center of his chest, but his dark eyes remained locked on the other man.

"Do you have any idea how rude that was?" she chastised once the poor man had taken off and Michael shoved the door shut behind him.

"Do you have any idea how much I don't fuckin' care?" He crossed the room and looked over the plates that had been set on the table before reaching for the bottle of imported non-alcoholic beer that had been placed next to what was obviously his plate. He twisted the cap off and threw it on the table before taking a long drink from the cold bottle. His gaze wandered over the food that Maria had ordered, taking in the prime rib steak, loaded baked potato, broccoli, dinner rolls, and salad.

"Sit down and eat." Maria took the chair on the opposite side of the table, glancing over the lasagna, garlic rolls, and salad. She reached for the glass of wine, taking a sip before setting it back on the table and picking up the cloth napkin and shaking it out.

As she had known he would, Michael slowly started to mellow out as he ate his meal. He was still avoiding every attempt she had made to shift the conversation back to Charles Dupree though. She frowned at him when he leaned over and cut off a sizable chunk of her lasagna before scooping it up. He shoveled the forkful of pasta into his mouth and chewed it slowly before washing it down with a swallow of beer.

"Not as good as yours," he muttered as he cut the last piece of his steak in half. "Look, I know you wanna talk about today, but I'm not interested; he's not gonna call so there's no reason to talk about it."

"Michael - "

"It's been several hours and if he was gonna call he would've already done it."

_Hmmm, interesting, Michael seemed to be incredibly touchy about Charles Dupree; it was as if he were trying to avoid the disappointment of being rejected by his human donor by turning the tables and rejecting Charles first. Was is possible that he did, in fact, want Dupree to call?_ "It was a lot of information for him to take in, Michael. You've gotta give him some time to adjust and to process it all."

"I don't have to give him anything and I have no intention of waitin' around. We're leavin' first thing in the mornin'." Michael's mind was already set on his decision. _The old guy didn't wanna deal with him? Fine, he'd just go; he'd take Maria with him and he'd never look back. Good riddance!_

Maria rolled her eyes at his declaration as she finished her glass of wine. "You didn't exactly process this information on the spot either, y'know."

"I think sixty years should be plenty of time since he's believed in aliens and abductions his whole life." He was pacing again, his right hand dragging the identification tags he wore back and forth on their chain.

"Believing it and coming face to face with an alien-human hybrid carrying your DNA is two different things. Your existence is validation that he was right all along and that he's not insane regardless of what society thinks."

"He's not gonna call, and even if he does I don't have anything to say to him."

"Fine, Michael, continue living in your little fantasy world where you're unaffected by everything that goes on around you." She sat at the table, shredding her dinner roll into a pile of crumbs as she thought about the situation.

Across the room Michael watched her, sensing that she wasn't finished saying what she had to say. He didn't have to wait long to be proven right.

"No, you know what? You chose to come here and you're gonna take responsibility for that choice. That old man's gonna want to talk to you." She shook her head as she wiped her hands on a napkin and stood up. "He's lost everything in his pursuit of the truth, so you're not gonna just - "

_What, and he was to blame for that?_ "That ain't got nothin' to do with me! He wasn't lookin' for me; he just wanted people to know that he wasn't insane! I'm not responsible for his delusions!"

"It wasn't a delusion though, was it? You're living proof that everything he's believed for the past sixty years is true. You can't just come here, tell him about it, and then just leave without giving him a chance to talk to you."

"He had his chance to talk to me!" he exploded, pissed that she kept pushing him when he had already made his position clear. "What the fuck was I thinkin' when I agreed to let you come with me?"

"Good question," she snapped, throwing the napkin on the table and crossing the room. "Why don't you think about it for a while?"

"Where're you goin'?" 

"It was a long day for me too, Michael, and you don't wanna talk about this anyway." She pulled the door open and scowled when he shoved it shut again.

Michael met her irritated gaze when her head snapped up and she glared at him. _She was exhausted,_ he realized as he noticed the tired slump to her shoulders and the shadows under her eyes.

"Let's watch a movie," he blurted out, not wanting her to leave but unwilling to ask her to stay.

"No, thanks." She rubbed her eyes and reached for the door again. "I'm tired; I think I'm just gonna go to bed early." She turned back to look at him from the hallway. "Don't be such a jerk when that guy comes back to clean up from dinner. And, Michael," she yawned, "give him a tip this time."

Michael threw himself down on the couch and stared at the dark television screen. _At least watchin' a movie with her would've provided a distraction,_ he thought, annoyed that she was being so selfish. _The least she could've done was keep him company and help him keep his mind off of the days events since it was all her fault anyway. What was the big deal? So, he didn't wanna wait around for a call that wasn't comin' anyway… why did it matter?_

"Fuck it," he muttered, lifting his legs and propping his feet up on the coffee table.


	41. Chapter 41

**Chapter 40**

The hours passed by unnoticed as Charles sifted through information he had gathered over the years. He paused when one trembling hand retrieved an article clipped from the local paper many years ago. It was faded, yellow around the edges, and brittle with age, but the woman in the picture would forever be remembered with crystal clear clarity.

_The newspaper photographer hadn't done her justice,_ he thought, and his fingers shook as they brushed over her features. Even now he could remember her excitement the day the article had been released in the society pages and immediately on the heels of that memory came the one of her expression the day she had begged him to let her in, to let her help him deal with his obsession.

He had been blinded by his obsession, unable to let her or anyone else help him, and he had taken her pleas as criticism. He had turned on her, blaming her for trying to confuse him and keeping him from finding the evidence he needed so badly; he had refused to see reason and he had turned his back on her and never spoken to her again.

That had been nearly five years after their engagement had been announced and looking back on it now he was able to recall the difference that those five years had made. His obsession had all but drained every spark of life out of her and she had held on to the belief that he loved her more than his truth that had taken over every aspect of his life. For five years she had harbored that hope and he knew she had tried to the best of her ability to help him.

She had tried to contact him over the years but he had spurned every attempt she made, letting his obsession for the truth blind him. Over the years he had changed from an intense young man in love with life and his fiancé and ready to conquer the world, into a cold, hateful, obsessed man, bitter about everything and living in seclusion.

He slid the article aside to look at the one below it and his vision blurred as moisture filled his eyes. Another article, this one much smaller and almost clinical in nature, had been clipped from the obituary section of the newspaper. _How was it possible to sum up the life of such a vibrant woman with just a few dozen words?_

She had never married, never had children, and she had gone to her grave still loving him. He had received a letter from her, mailed by her lawyer after her death, but at the time he had read it and carelessly tossed it aside, putting it away with all of the other bits and pieces of information he had collected about her over the years.

In the letter she had wished him well and expressed her hope that he would find peace. Near the end she had urged him to meet with her lawyer and something inside that he had thought long-dead had insisted that he not deny her that one thing. He had complied with her wish and learned that her final wish was for him to be buried in the plot next to hers when his time came to an end. When the lawyer had told him she had purchased the plots together he hadn't understood, but the man had simply smiled and given him another note from her. He had stormed out of the law office and gone home with the express intent of getting so drunk he wouldn't remember the day or that last note.

Unfortunately, it had been the first thing on his fuzzy brain the next day when he had emerged from his alcohol-induced state. She had been an optimist; she had romanticized things, insisted that good could be found in everything, and he had callously destroyed her and left her to live her life alone. Her reason for buying the plot next to hers and asking him to accept it had been completely illogical as far as he was concerned. _But, now that he thought about it, that was so her. She was a strange one and always had been, even in death;_ she had hoped that he would find peace in life, but if not, she was certain that he would find it in the afterlife and they could be together for eternity.

_Regrets were a bitch to live with,_ he thought as he stared at the papers strewn out across the desk. _Oh, he had proof now… confirmation that he wasn't insane… and he had no one to share it with._ On the one hand he felt vindicated and on the other hand he felt… empty. His entire life had been dedicated to chasing a truth that he was never meant to find - that truth had been meant to find him, and in a way he never could've imagined. There was no way to deny that the young man shared his DNA; there were too many similarities to be ignored. His facial features, his eyes, his physical build, and his attitude, that was all him.

It hadn't been difficult to see the tension between the couple; it was obvious that they weren't together, but given the slightest encouragement at the right moment they'd be all over each other. The young man was driven though, and he was the love-'em-and-leave-'em type, he wasn't interested in anything else, and he was too stubborn to consider the possibilities.

Charles gently brushed his fingertips over the article again. _He had to talk to Michael again. He couldn't change his past, he couldn't fix his mistakes, but maybe he could help his… What? Son? Grandson?_ He didn't know, but maybe he could help him avoid some of those dangerous pitfalls he himself had been too blind to see.

** xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Michael knocked on Maria's door the next morning, impatient to get on the road and put as many miles as possible between him and Charles Dupree. He shoved his way in just as soon as the door was unlocked and his dark gaze raked over Maria's body, annoyed when he realized that she wasn't dressed to leave.

"I told you we were gonna leave this mornin'," he snapped, dropping his bag on the floor and prowling around the room.

Maria had been peacefully sleeping before he had so rudely interrupted her rest by pounding on the door at… she glanced at the clock on the nightstand and then glared at him. "Michael, it's barely seven o'clock."

"And?"

"And, I'm going back to bed." She ignored his irritated denial and brushed past him, crawling back in the bed and snuggling up under the covers.

"This isn't up for discussion, Maria."

"Good." She burrowed down deeper under the heavy comforter and settled back into the warm spot she had vacated when her uninvited guest had announced his presence.

Sometimes Michael really questioned why he let her get away with things like this. He was showered, packed, and ready to go, but was he going anywhere? No. No, he was being ignored while she went back to sleep. He seriously considered grabbing the blankets and jerking them off of her, but changed his mind when he decided that it wasn't worth the hell she'd put him through later.

Instead he settled down on the other side of the bed and snatched up a couple of pillows, stacking them behind him and flopping back. Even with all of his moving around Maria didn't stir or move so much as an inch. _So much for getting an early start,_ he thought, but he wasn't as annoyed as he had been a few minutes earlier. _Maybe he'd just rest his eyes for a few minutes and then attempt to get her out of bed again._

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A couple of hours later the ringing telephone woke him up and he blinked as he tried to bring his bleary gaze into focus. He pushed himself up into a sitting position when he realized that Maria wasn't in bed any longer and he heard the shower running. It was shut off as he reached for the phone, jerking the receiver up and bringing it up to his ear. "What?" he growled.

"Is this Michael Guerin?"

His sleepy brain didn't register who the voice belonged to. "Who wants to know?"

"Charles Dupree, you little ingrate," the old man muttered.

"What d'you want?"

"I need to see the two of you again."

"Michael, who're you talking to?" Maria asked as she stepped out of the bathroom dressed in a fluffy white bathrobe.

"No one," he said, glancing at her before turning his attention back to the man on the other end of the phone. "We're not interested; we're leavin' within the hour, so you're outta - "

Maria snatched the phone out of his hand when she realized who he was talking to. "Charles, I'm so glad you called," she said in greeting. She glared at Michael and shook her head when he motioned for her to end the call. "No, no, we'd be happy to come out and visit with you this afternoon."

"I'm not gonna go see him again, Maria."

"Yes, you are." She dropped the receiver back on the hook and turned to look at him.

Michael frowned and shook his head. "No, I'm not." His attention was momentarily diverted when he noticed the plate of donuts on the table. "Where'd you get donuts?"

"I ordered them from room service; I figured you'd want something to munch on when you woke up."

"They're the kind with the raspberry fillin' inside?" he asked, already making his way towards the table.

Maria rolled her eyes as she went back into the dressing area to dry her hair and finish getting ready. She didn't know why he had even asked. He was getting spoiled and she knew it was her fault; he wouldn't even eat donuts anymore unless they were glazed, dusted with powdered sugar, and had raspberry filling in the center.

Michael had worked his way through three donuts and was contemplating a fourth when she came back into the room. "We should be in Santa Fe by early evening, so - "

"We're not heading out to Santa Fe until we've met with Charles."

"Maria, I don't wanna see him again. It's a waste of time!" He started to pace, already getting worked up again.

"Hey, look, how about a compromise, huh? We go see Charles and in exchange - "

He pounced on that. "We have sex?" He hadn't had sex in longer than he cared to think about. _Please, God, let her say yes!_

Maria almost laughed at his enthusiastic tone; she had just known he was going to ask that. "Good try, but, no."

"For fuck's sake, Maria," he huffed irritably. "Can I at least get a backrub out of it?"

"I'll agree to that. As tense as you are, you need it."

"No shirt… skin to skin contact."

"Yes, if it'll get you to go and visit with Charles, I'll agree to that." She grinned at his self-satisfied smirk. "It will not lead to sex though, so you might as well rein your imagination in." As soon as he scowled she knew that was exactly where his mind had been.

"Like I care," he said, shrugging carelessly. "I'm gonna hit the bar with Indigo when we get to Santa Fe anyway; trust me, there are plenty of women there who'll be ready and willin' to give me what I want. You don't get to ruin my plans to get laid this time," he said, enjoying having the upper hand for once. "You're not invited to go out with us."

Maria seethed internally at his offhanded comment. _We'll just see about that,_ she thought with a frown. "We should get going."

Michael grinned and grabbed another donut. "Let's go."

** xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Maria glanced between the two silent men after several minutes passed without a single word being spoken. _It was just her luck to find herself in the position of trying to get the two most stubborn men on the planet to carry on a conversation._

"Maybe this would be easier if the two of you were alone for a while," she said finally.

"Alone?" Charles parroted.

"Why?"

_Of course Michael was immediately suspicious of her motives._ "I just thought it'd be a little easier for you guys to talk if I'm not around."

_Huh-uh, no way was she gonna abandon him and leave him stuck with this ancient replica of himself._ He had never been comfortable with people in general, but old people just really made him uncomfortable. He had never had any expectation of reaching old age anyway, so what was the point of spending time with them and learning about their lives or their past experiences? "This was your idea, Maria; you're not bailin' on me."

Maria sighed. _Was Michael resisting because he was afraid that he might come to respect Charles, the man who was in some way, his father? Was he trying to avoid forming any attachment to him? Well, if that was the case, he had better think again. If she was here to help Michael learn to care about humans, to save humanity from annihilation at Khivar's hands at some point in the future, then he was going to start with Charles Dupree._ "I'm not bailing on you, but we're not accomplishing anything by sitting here without speaking."

"The girl's right," Charles said as he levered himself to his feet. "Why don't the two of us take a walk?"

"I don't take orders from you, old man," Michael snarled.

Maria's tone took on a harsh edge as her anger with him moved up a notch and she practically roared, "Michael!"

Michael turned to look at her, his rigid posture showing that he was just as angry as she was. "What? I've made it this far without him - "

Charles Dupree had watched them argue back and forth, but the young man's declaration had him seeing red and his voice was filled with venom when he spoke. "Just like the rest of your race, aren't you? Take what you need and throw the rest away. Nothin' but a bunch of manipulative, vicious - "

"Hey, don't lump me in with the rest of the aliens," Michael interrupted. "I'm not the one that did that stuff to you."

The two men glared at each other for several long seconds before Maria nudged the hybrid and he turned on her.

"What?"

"Go talk to him," she growled.

"Why the fuck do I need to go…" His voice trailed off as he looked into her green eyes and he growled under his breath when he saw the trust shining in them… trust that he would make the right choice.

"Michael."

"Fine, I'm goin'," he muttered as he stood up. "Happy now?"

"Ecstatic," she muttered under her breath.


	42. Chapter 42

**Part 41**

Michael followed Charles as he walked out of the house and headed towards… nothing. He didn't know why Maria was insisting that he needed to talk to the cranky old bastard. They had nothing in common so it made no sense for him to have to waste his time talking to his genetic donor.

"Tell me about yourself," Charles said after they had been walking for a while.

"What d'you wanna know?" he asked, his tone suspicious.

Charles shook his head as he wondered what kind of life his… _son?_ Had lived that had made him so angry and wary of people. "Boy, you don't trust anyone, do you?"

_This was all Maria's fault, once again. Here he was bein' forced to talk to this old guy that he didn't want anything to do with. Why did he always end up doin' what she wanted him to do?_ Michael tried to keep his calm as he answered through gritted teeth, "Not until they give me reason to, and you haven't given me any - "

"You're here, aren't you? You wouldn't even be alive without the use of my DNA!" Charles paced, his agitated movements hindered by his arthritic joints. _He couldn't believe how hostile, difficult, and ungrateful this boy was!_

Michael watched him, his expression indignant. "Hey, it's not like you volunteered it."

"You people didn't give me the chance to either accept or decline an invitation to be tortured and experimented on. They abducted me and performed their heinous tests without my consent." _Why would anyone volunteer to what he had been put through?_ Charles asked himself as he rolled his eyes to the heavens above. _He wasn't a masochist._

"Like you would've agreed." Michael shook his head as he stared off in the distance. This was a colossal waste of his time and it was seriously cutting into his plans to get to Santa Fe and get laid.

"Well, I guess we'll never know now, will we?"

"Like it matters."

Charles shook his head. "Why don't we just go back to my original question?"

_The original question? Hmmm… what to say? Maybe his lonely childhood… or how about how he killed people for a living? Great discussion!_ But, he answered anyway. _The guy wanted to know who he really was? Fine, then he was gonna learn the whole dirty, ugly truth. Old man wouldn't want anything to do with him once he knew the truth._ "What d'you wanna know? That I grew up in an orphanage and had a really shitty childhood? Or maybe that when I turned 17 I joined a military unit and became one of the country's top assassins? What exactly do you wanna know?"

"So, you're a soldier," the old man mused thoughtfully.

"Does it matter?"

"It's just interesting that you chose a career path similar to what you did in your previous life." He scratched his stubbled chin as his gaze raked over the younger man, taking in his rigid posture and his cold demeanor. "I wonder how much genetic memory you actually retained when they cloned you."

Michael shrugged but his mind was following the same line of thought. He had never really given it much thought, but now he wondered if it was coincidence or something else altogether that had set him on the path he had taken. _What had made him choose to follow his more violent instincts when his counterpart in Maria's universe had clearly chosen a different path?_ He didn't understand it and he wasn't sure he wanted to devote much time to thinking about it.

"I did a little research of my own this mornin'; it would appear that you've done well for yourself in spite of the fact that you basically came from nothing." Charles nodded in approval. "I can respect that since I'm a self-made man myself."

"Yeah, well, nobody ever gave me a damn thing. I learned early on that if you want somethin' in life you've gotta take it. There ain't a damn thing I own that I didn't bust my ass for."

"So, you don't use your powers to - "

Michael's gaze shot to the old man and his eyes narrowed warily. "What do you know about my abilities?"

"Again with the suspicion!" Charles exploded. "Why can't you just answer a simple question with a simple answer?"

"I don't have to take this from you."

He frowned when Michael turned, clearly intending to walk back to the house so he could get Maria and leave. It took a considerable effort to bring his temper under control and he forced his voice to remain level as he called the younger man back. "Look, I'm just curious, it's nothin' more than that. Your race seemed to communicate telepathically; I don't recall ever seein' them actually speakin'."

"They had other powers?" Michael asked, his tone grudging.

"Some had the ability to heal, some seemed to be able to enter the subconscious of others, and on a couple of occasions I saw them reconstructing things out of almost nothing." He shook his head. "Their powers seemed to vary; they didn't all share the same ones. I was just wonderin' if you had any of those powers."

Michael shrugged. "I can blow shit up," he muttered finally. "We've been workin' on my ability to focus on specific targets an' I'm getting better at it." He paused for a moment, realizing that he was eager to show off his ability. "Wanna see me blow somethin' up?"

Charles nodded, keeping silent when he saw the combination of pride and enthusiasm on Michael's face; he doubted that the younger man was even aware of it. He watched as lines of concentration formed around Michael's eyes, saw him shake his right hand out and flex it several times before he finally relaxed his stance and his gaze zeroed in on his target. He had a feeling that the man was a formidable opponent in battle and he could only imagine how deadly he was in combat situations.

"You seem to be able to focus on specific targets pretty well," he observed after watching the destruction of inanimate objects for a while.

"I'm getting better," Michael said with a shrug. "It's a little tricky when it involves things that're in motion, but even that's getting easier." He hooked his thumbs in his back pockets as he looked at the old man.

"Go on an' ask whatever you've got on your mind," Charles growled, uncomfortable with the scrutiny.

_Where should he start? With his abduction maybe? How and when did they select Dupree? Why had he been chosen to be his donor? Maybe the old man didn't know the answer to that one. Well, at least he had inherited good genes, something that had helped when it came to taking a woman to bed… or wherever else happened to be convenient._ "Do you remember the first time you were abducted?"

Charles automatically went on the defensive as soon as the question was voiced. "Not exactly the kinda thing a person's likely to forget, is it? You want the details? Or is it enough to simply say that I was workin' in an oil field late at night the first time they snatched my ass off of this planet?"

"How long were you gone?"

"I was returned within moments based on Earth time; based on my calculations they kept me for close to seven months the first time." He shook his head. "Either time moves at a different rate there or Maria's right and your race has the capability to alter or control the passage of time. Regardless of which is true, it felt like an eternity." He looked away for a few moments to compose himself as the memories assaulted him. "I won't talk about what they did… I just… I won't."

Michael nodded. "I wouldn't ask you to talk about that; captivity's a bitch and there's no reason to ever go into any kinda details. Were you taken on a ship?"

"Yeah, I was transported along with others to another planet."

Michael was surprised. _Yeah, Dupree had mentioned bein' taken there the day before, but it seemed weird that his human donor had actually BEEN on Antar while he, Michael Guerin, hybrid extraordinaire, had never been there and would probably never set foot on his own planet._ "You were taken to Antar?"

"I would imagine that's where they took us. I never saw anything beyond the walls of the building we were kept in; it was very sterile, very… cold." He shivered at the memory as a feeling of cold permeated his skin. "There were no windows and we were all kept in separate cells; we were never allowed to talk to each other. The aliens never spoke aloud…" He frowned. "The only sounds were the sounds of movement, the sounds of steel instruments being handled and placed back into their correct places… the sound of silence."

Michael observed the old man as he stared into the past. He had been captured before; he had gone through beatings by his captors and he had spent time in solitary confinement so he knew how that could affect a person's mind. The silence was sometimes the worst part of confinement and he had seen its maddening effect on people with weaker minds.

"I've always led a solitary life, and even more so after that first abduction. I became obsessed with findin' the answers, discovering why they had taken me and before I even realized it I had lost everyone that meant anything to me." He chuckled humorlessly. "Not that there were a lot of people to lose, but I managed to drive away the one person who I had ever given a damn about. I never was able to let many people in, but she got all the way in and knew me better than anyone else. I pushed her away and practically destroyed her when I did it; I was so obsessed with findin' the truth that I shut her out. I've lived most of my life with that regret; if I had been able to let go of the past, to put the obsession with my abduction to rest, I might've been able to salvage my relationship with her." He shook his head. "Don't make the same mistakes, boy. Carryin' the past around because it's comprised of all the mistakes you made and all the decisions that you regret… that's no way to live."

For the first time Michael didn't go on the attack as the old man handed out advice. He listened without responding; taking it in and when Charles fell silent once more he respected the silence and kept quiet.

** xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Maria wandered around Charles' home while the men were gone, eventually finding herself in the basement office. Her curious gaze moving over the dusty shelves packed with books about aliens, encounters, UFOs, and abductions. The wall was filled with maps of constellations and sighting locations, sketches of people and what she could only assume were aliens, and blurry photographs of UFOs.

She leaned closer to see the sheets of newspaper filled with a nearly illegible scrawl that only got more difficult to decipher as the years passed. She sat down in the chair behind the desk, her gaze moving over the things stacked haphazardly in several places. It looked like it had all been placed there in a hurry, as if no thought had been put into the order of the items.

Her fingers traced over an old photograph that was lying on top of a stack of notebooks, the image faded by age. _It was still a shock to see how much he and Michael looked alike,_ she thought. The photograph had been taken when he was much younger and his image was identical to Michael at 25 years old. It had obviously been taken before his abduction; he looked happy in the picture, his arms around a woman who was looking up at him with an expression filled with love.

Her attention was drawn to a few pages scattered on what little clear space there was on the surface of the desk and she reached over to pick them up. The handwriting was feminine and the tone of the letter identified it as being written from a lover and she glanced at the photograph in her other hand before turning her attention back to the letter. For the briefest moment she felt a flash of guilt for reading it, but the words and feelings pulled her in and she quickly lost herself in it.

The woman had poured her heart out, putting all of her feelings down on paper as she said her final farewell to the man she had loved her entire life. Her final request had been for her beloved to accept the plot next to hers as his final resting place, believing that in death they would finally be able to find peace and that they would be able to be together. There were several places throughout the letter where the ink was smeared from drops of moisture… tears maybe, and she wondered if they belonged to Charles or the woman who had written the letter. The letter was signed by _Aja_ and she assumed that it had been a pet name Charles had given to the woman. If her recollections were correct, Laurie had mentioned that her grandmother's name was Ada-Jane.

She carefully replaced the letter and photograph before looking around once more and then going back upstairs. There was no way to know how long the guys would be gone and she just hoped it wouldn't end with them getting into a fight. _It wouldn't surprise her though,_ she mused. Both men had strong personalities and neither one was willing to give an inch.

Charles lived in a huge, rambling two-story house that he had purchased decades earlier and she wondered if he had bought it with the intention of marrying the woman in the photograph and filling the many bedrooms with children. Most of the rooms were empty, closed off to the rest of the house, and it created a very depressing atmosphere. The windows were all covered, shutting the rest of the world out and keeping him safely hidden from prying eyes.

She had a feeling that he had been a completely different person before the abduction had occurred and it made her sad to know that he hadn't been able to let the woman he loved help him find a way to deal with what had happened to him. She wondered if Michael - in her universe or this one - could've turned out like Charles if circumstances had been different.

Maria pushed the heavy curtains back from the doors that led out onto the back deck and she opened them up, walking out onto the deck and looking at the large pool. _Charles must use the pool,_ she thought, noticing that it was well-maintained; the water gently lapping at the sides was clean and she could smell the chlorine in the water. It was still way too cold to use an outdoor pool in her opinion, but she knew there were some people who actually liked it like that.

_Unless…_ She shifted slightly and watched the surface of the water, nodding to herself when she saw the steam rising into the air before quickly disappearing. _She should've known. The man was rich so of course he'd have a pool with capabilities built into it to maintain a set water temperature regardless of the weather._ She glanced around, taking in the miles of nothing that surrounded the house, and she wondered if Charles would mind if she made use of his pool. _Nah,_ she decided after several minutes of internal debating, _he wouldn't mind._

** xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx**

Michael entered the darkened house behind Charles and glanced around when he heard nothing but silence. His gaze turned suspicious as they moved further into the house and he turned to look at the old man. "Where's she at?"

"What?"

"Maria," he growled. "The woman cannot be close by and be this silent, trust me." He shook his head when Charles just looked at him as if he'd lost his mind. "It's too quiet, old man; she's not in the house."

Charles paused and reached up to scratch his eyebrow with his right thumb. _The house __**was**__ too silent._ He looked around and motioned toward the deck doors with his cane. "Maybe she's out back."

Michael brushed past the old man and jerked the double doors open, stepping out on the deck and looking around. His gaze located Maria with ease and he grinned when he saw that she had stripped down to her underwear. _Okay, so maybe the pain and suffering he had been forced to endure for the past three hours was gonna be worth it._ It was near the end of January and it was colder in Texas than it was in Los Angeles, but apparently that wasn't enough of a deterrent to keep Maria out of the pool.


End file.
